RedGarnet222

What fun to read about each quilt top you have in your bins. I am sure we all have stories about those UFO's we carefully store away until another day. I have brought out two that need the final borders on to finish at least that much.
It is way too ahead for me to have planned the quilting for each of them. I tend to let the quilt do a little talking before I decide. I also tend to concider how they will be used and the people who will get them. (How they will treat them).
Honestly, I am tired of those pretties not being used and hidden away. I will try and finish a few. Lord knows how many there are. I guess one at a time will get the job done... LOL!

tuckyquilter

I love them all, and the stories too. Just pick one and make it you job for one week, then go back to piecing etc for a couple of weeks then repeat. I'm in the same boat you are on this quilting thing. Although I do pay to have my special quilt, like gifts, done professionally. The rest I do myself.

sewNso

have you considered just getting someone to quilt them using a panogram? cheaper and quicker that way.

toogie

I so enjoyed reading this post. I love stories about how a quilt came to be. I made an anniversary quilt for us last year with 9 P and snowball block embroidered with dates & things we did, first place we lived, etc .
Our oldest grandson enjoyed 'reading' the quilt and would ask further question about each block.

I still consider myself a newbie, although I have cut & pieced 9 QOV tops size 60x80 this year and one queen quilt for myself completely finished. I quilted it with a fairly close meander.

You tops and stories are an inspiration for me. I hope this thread continues as I looked forward to reading more. It's like a book you can't put down!

juliasb

Your tops are so pretty. You are sure to make progress on all of them in the near future. I'm pretty good about finished tops and UFO's I only have 5 right now and that is soon to be 4 since I am back to work on one. I only have one at this time that I need to start and finish before the end of the year so the rest should be done in 2020.

Battle Axe

Just loved the stories Ice Blossom. About 8 years ago someone suggested we make a list of our UFOs and I did that. Got up to 13 or 14 and stopped. I just could not believe I had that many. I'd like to hear more about the rest of them.

Iceblossom

Interesting to see this pop back up -- I'm still looking for the directions to the Ribbon/Christmas quilt. I bought a little drive unit that plugs into the USB port the right size for those square computer disks. The disk I think the directions are on can read one directory but not the other! Argh. We have one old system that still has Windows 7 on it, it shouldn't make a difference but I'm going to try plugging in that unit and try reading the disk there. Data recovery rates are not worth the cost especially with no guarantees. I know I saw at least one page of the written directions in the sewing room in the last year and I do still have the EQ program file, but it was the construction technique and the sizes that are the loss.

Those were the tops with the biggest stories, some of my tops in progress have stories of their own but I'm not calling them unfinished yet... I will be doing a thread on my series of tops for me, when I'm done I'll have a different quilt for each month of the year. Still have to take a couple of pictures of the in-progress tops and start the write-ups before I'm ready to post.

Long ago I decided a finished top was a finished project, just not yet a finished quilt. What I really love is the planning and playing with fabric and piecing, not such a fan on the quilting part. While I am finishing quilts it is clear to me that I'm going to leave this world or at least my quilting time will be done long before all my tops are finished. I'm ok with that. The ones that are meant for specific people are the ones that will get done, the ones I work on just to have projects may or may not get done, but they all get put away with a back and a binding.

I really like making queen sized quilts, but that's a hard size for me to get quilted down. I can handle a crib to twin project and get it quilted so that's the size range I'm going to make the most of. Finishing up a donation quilt today actually, I'm not so happy with the quilting and probably will have to take out and redo some sections but I'm going to try washing it first, sometimes that helps the stitch quality as stuff puffs back out. First I have to finish hand sewing about a foot of binding -- lol at my speed that should take me most of the rest of the day

janiebakes

Love your bug quilt with the geckos. Are the geckos paper pieced? Appliqued? TIA, Jane

sJens

Beautiful quilts and love the stories that go with them.

Iceblossom

The geckos are simply ironed on with fusible interfacing and cut from the fabric. It was most likely a Hoffman or SSI, there were some other prints in the line including turtles.

I made a design decision to not applique them down, gradually as time and washing happens they will be set free from the quilt and out into the world -- I think they will leave a trace behind when they go.

I have given away my remaining pieces of that fabric, but gosh it will remain a favorite in my heart

I didn't get that top done in time for my son (had the fabric but it didn't get pieced until he was over 20 and moved out), but my grandson was just born in September -- so the goal is to have it for him by the time he is in first grade. I think I have come to a solution for how to quilt the bug jars, I'm going to make some general shapes but making sure they have the correct number of body parts, so there will be a standard spider, dragonfly, bee, frog, etc. that will be outlined into the correct jar for the type of bug. The background will be a fairly tight stipple, to look like textured wall basically.

My current project is using up some squares that were given to me from about the same time period (Y2K roughly), lots of bug prints and other bright juvenile subject matter. So much fun. I should go into the sewing room and do about 30 minutes of seams on that project, and then I need to cut some more fabrics and I'm going back into my bug collection to do so!