Just UFOs

UFOs in this instance are UnFinished Objects. And because I am a quilter - these UnFinished Objects were all items that were ready to be quilted, but, which, for some reason or another, had ended up in a box with other items that were ready to be quilted.

I want to tell you a story, related to UFOs and quilting. Last January, I had a large (king sized quilt) on my frame, and it took me a bit of time to free motion quilt it... And while I was working on it, I started thinking about what I should do next. (Not that I would normally let my mind wander when I should be concentrating on what I should be doing!) Anyway, I decided that I would next quilt a quilt that had ended up in the 'naughty' box. (Well, I don't actually have a 'naughty' box - but I did have a rubbermaid container with a few UnFinished Objects in it, and this one had ended up in the bottom of it, because it had caused me some problems.) I was mostly through being annoyed over it though, and I thought I ought to finish it up. So, after I had quilted on the HUGE king sized quilt for a couple of hours, one evening, I decided to get the Houses Block of the Month quilt out of the UFO box, and have it ready... it would take up the exalted status of 'next'. (Did I mention that I thought I had about 4 or 5 items in that box? Well, that's what I thought.) Imagine my astonishment, when I got to the bottom of the box and the House BoM was NOT THERE! This was a calamity!!! Where could it have gone? But wait, UNDER that UFO box was another box the same size... and when I lifted the cover to peek in, there were, you guessed it, MORE UFOs in there. All together, there were... well, I'm embarassed to admit it. But there were more than 5. In fact, there were more than, ahem, 25 items in there. There were, in fact, 27 items and two of them belonged to someone else. OMG!

So, that set the tone for 2016. This became the year in which my goal was to finish those 27 UFOs. I did the House BoM (at the very bottom of the second box!) first. 

House Sampler - Block of the Month

And then the two baby quilts that someone had asked me to quilt for them the previous fall. (The cheque they sent me was stale dated.) (As I was getting ready to email them and ask them if they wanted to have them back, they sent me a second cheque - so I guessed that was a hint, and I quilted the two quilts and made two little cuddlers to go with them.) In March, my friend Molly came down from Ontario, and she made table runners and I quilted THOSE for her - 5 more items quilted. Then I quilted and quilted and quilted. I have two friends who decided to enter quilts into a quilt show in Ontario (I live in Nova Scotia) - they sent me 5 quilts between them, and I stopped doing UFOs to do their quilts and get them mailed back to them - all in time for the show!! A friend came over with a bag of her own UFOs to give me. I quilted 5 of them and gave away the rest.

My goal had been to get all 27 UFOs finished before the September Quilt Guild meeting - but the summer was beautiful - perfect for hiking and taking photos outdoors. In September I went to a quilt retreat, took a class with Deb Plestid and made three more wall hangings - they were complete including the binding before I came home - no new UFOs allowed! 

Abstract - Free Motion Quilting

Lilies - Free Motion Quilting

Three Bums on a Beach - Free Motion Quilting

 

In October, I was down to TWO of those UFOs. In November, I had them all done! My friend who gave me the bag of UFOs that she wanted to get rid of brought over yet another bag of UFOs - one of which was the most boring BoM I have ever seen, but as a quilt kit it was fine, and I assembled that, quilted it with seashells and sand dollars and gave it away for Christmas. 

Beach Quilt - Mo's (boring) Block of the Month

I brought home, from the November Quilt Guild meeting, a finished quilt top to quilt for a special project for the guild to give away for Christmas and had that done in time to take it to the December meeting so it would be delivered on time. I made two wall hangings for my Daughter-in-law for Christmas and I made two different ones and gave the best of the two of them to my sister for Christmas. I watched the Midnight Quilt Show with Angela Walters, made her Variable Star quilt and finished binding it yesterday.

Variable Star, designed by Angela Walters. In this photo, ready to have the hand binding done.

So, if you have made it this far in my braggy braggy blog post, here it is. I have quilted 60 items, ranging in size from a King Sized bed quilt to a 1 by 2 foot wall hanging in 2016. I have caught up with and emptied BOTH of my UFO boxes. And I have resolved to NEVER get into this Quilting UFO Quandary again!!! 

Wish me luck!