Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Stashbuster group & UFO confession

I am happy to tell you that I have been accepted as a member of the "Stashbusters" webring...see the little Stashbuster's box on the right? If you click on 'list' you can visit lots of wonderful quilting blogs. I recommend making a big pot of tea before you start so you can enjoy a leisurely stroll through the quilting rooms, stashes, and projects of many interesting quilters from around the world.
The Stashbusters are discussing their oldest UFO's, so I am going to humiliate myself by confessing that my oldest UFO is my very first quilting project, started in 1990 at a "Quilt-in-a-day" class. Not knowing a thing about quilting, I thought I would make the quilt that day. I did make the quilt TOP in one day, but who knew there where other things you had to do?!?!?! So I borrowed a book from the library on how to finish a quilt, and followed the instructions from hand basting on the floor (never to be done by me again!) to hand quilting. Here I am on my hands and knees, hand basting this thing!I have been working on it every winter since then. Every year my daughter asks if I think I might finish it this winter and I say something not committal. It's not likely going to be this year either! My guild UFO group has called it my "Quilt-in-a-decade" project, but it's almost two decades now!
Why is it still a UFO? Well, I don't like the fabrics/colours any more and I'm not thrilled with how the quilting has turned out, and now that I am an experienced quilter, I notice so many mistakes. Also, because hand quilting takes me a long time. I am slow at it and although I enjoy it and find it relaxing, if I am going to do handwork these days, I prefer to do beading.
What are my plans to finish it? I'll keep working away at it. I could do some hand work at night when my family watches the TV, but I'm in the middle of a fun beading project, so I'd rather do that. I'll keep trying to force myself to finish...I am so close. I just need to do the straight bar quilting on the last border. Here is a close up of the ribbon quilt pattern in the second border, which I enjoyed working on.
The last question....how many UFO's do you have? I honestly don't know and don't think I should humiliate myself further by even guessing, since I'm sure it is over 100! I have them hidden all over the house! It's a terrible secret, but true...don't tell anyone!

2 comments:

Mary Johnson said...

How funny that the Stashbuster bloggers decided to share their oldest UFO's just as I was working on mine.

I'm so GLAD to have it finally finished and actually look halfway decent since like you, my tastes have definitely developed over the years I've been quilting.

Jeanne said...

Kathy, welcome to Stashbusters! My second quilt was a QIAD log cabin that is still on my UFO list. One of these days...