Your family wants those memories of you!
 

Over the last year I have been finishing your great-grandmothers and grand mothers unfinished projects. Most are from 1930' so I've seen real 30's prints. Some are solid fabrics from the 70's. I have done 5 so far and have had a wonderful time but I feel kind of sad because I have to incorporate new fabrics with them and machine sew some that the blocks are hand pieced. These people only want them done so they can hang or use.
I have a pic of one of three made from 300, 6" hand pieced blocks that the great-grand sisters of great grand-mother made. It was a booger because she paper pieced them on thick paper bags. What an incredible chore to get this paper off without tearing away the hand sewing. Had to score the paper with xacto knife first, and still left behind a thin strip of paper. Also they were not all completely square! These are from the 30's. The next pic is from the 70's.
PLEASE FINISH YOUR UFO'S. Yeah , I'm making money but they are not totally from you!

PS, had to machine quilt pretty close so the blocks would stay together better.

You need a raise! Beautiful job and let's face it paper piecing can be a booger if it's foundation paper but paper bags, wow. Tough one.

You may need to rethink your costs and revise your charges because of all the difficulties that can be involved. A family member of mine who quilts will send back or charge to clean a quilt because of pet hair or dust or having to remove the foundation paper.

Just fantastic. It's true that those memories are important. I have 2 quilts that belonged to my grandmother that mean so much to me...every time I use them it reminds me of being a child and feeling so safe and loved and that there was no place in the world as nice as grandma's house.

They look super! I am working on UFO's this year and hope to start 2014 UFO free. I wonder if I'll make it.:D

I have a very old quilt from a family member that was also pieced with paper and left in for the warmth. Many old quilts have paper in them and when washed it sort of meshes in with the fabric.

I totally understand what you're saying about finishing our own quilts. (includes sending out to be quilted too) I started quilting 12 years ago and am so glad I'm able to concentrate on one quilt at a time. I have many friends that have up to 10 quilts in progress.
I also lost a dear friend to cancer two years ago that made quilts for many years. She had, too many to count, unfinished quilts. (guessing around 50) Some were in bags having a few cut pieces to a whole top.
So good point you have...try to finish a quilt because they will be loved for a very long time.

You're doing a great job on finishing these beauties.

Beautiful Work! I love the way you quilted the string quilt. If I may ask how you deal with the old tops not being square. I have one for a friend that I need to quilt, but it is really out of square. I thought at first I would use borders, but I don't think I can make it square. I have agonized over whether to rip it apart and re-sew. Your advice is appreciated.

They all were somewhere in the neighborhood of 6" so I used a regular foot on my machine and I guess you could say , eyeballed it . There was a bit of stretch so I held up two blocks together, slid them around, estimated and then just sewed them without worrying about the straightness of the side edge. My sewing made the side edge as straight as could be expected. Some I had to cut a wavy warped edge off, it was too much and some I ironed to get them to 'wavy outwards'. The majority sewed pretty good with the sewing part. I truly learned a lot about manipulating fabric on this one. When I went to quilt it, I had to shave a little bit on all sides and kind of stretch it around on my longarm to keep it straight. I haven't measured , but it is probably not square. Personally, I would not rip it apart. I would iron it and stretch it around, gently though. I got a lot of movement on my longarm. If you use a domestic machine , tape to the floor to get square. I would love to see a photo of it to see just how out of square it is and to just plain see it. Dang this is a long message!