It’s Wildcard Thursday, and today I want to talk about UFOs… those unfinished quilting projects that everyone seems to have.
May 20, 2010. That’s the date of my oldest UFO. I call it my “forever project”, because it’s a scrappy double wedding ring, and the thing is just going to take forever to finish stitching.
My newest UFO is from January 18th, and it’s the last project I worked on before my car accident. (Gosh, I feel like everything I talk about now is BA or AA – Before Accident or After Accident.)
I thought I’d hang the two UFOs together on the wall; my oh my they couldn’t be more different! The DWR you’ll probably recognize if you watched my video series on how to cut and assemble a DWR… yup, I’m still working on it, although “working on” is a generous term. It’s been sitting on a shelf in a giant plastic project bin since.
I’ve got dozens of UFOs; mostly they are neatly organized and placed in bins. They are numbered, and I keep a master list of projects to refer to. Actually, you can see the list on my website here – Projects in Progress – but based on my run through the studio this morning, it is woefully out of date.
As I walked through the studio and counted up my UFOs, I came up with 60 unfinished projects, ranging from clothing, to handbags, to quilts. Some of them are experiments or leftovers from tutorials, others are quilts I meant to turn into patterns, or just personal projects that I want to finish.
They are all over the studio, and my original intention was that I could only have as many UFOs as I had project bins and binder clips. Then I went out and bought more containers. It’s madness.
I’ve even got projects that don’t even really fit in their project bins, and they don’t fit on the shelf. I’ve got projects farmed out to friends who were gonna help me piece, and yes, I counted those too.
And we can’t forget the projects that are RTQ: Ready to Quilt. The quilt tops and backings are finished, the bindings are made, I just need to load them on the machine and get them quilted. There are 10 of those in total, but half of those were purposely not worked on because they’ve been in my traveling trunk show as I worked the teaching circuit last year. Unfinished quilt tops and backs travel more lightly than completed quilts, and it kept my luggage under 50 pounds.
Oh! Oh! And we can’t forget the OPPs. If that’s a new term to you, it’s because you usually have to be a long arm quilter to have them. OPP is Other People’s Property. Those are quilt tops that belong to customers that I haven’t quilted yet, or finished quilts that are here for one reason or another. I’ve only got 4 projects for quilting, but about a dozen finished quilts that need to get shipped back to their owners. The bulk of those are the 2014 Downton Abbey Mystery Quilts that were in the OSQE exhibit.
I’ve been through the UFOs before and pared them down; I think that was in 2012 or 2013, and I was excited to get rid of my oldest UFO (which was 10 years old) and end up with an oldest UFO that was only 2 years old. But we’re creeping back up again, and it’s time I think to go through the UFOs again and cull the herd. It’s getting to be unmanageable, and I know there are projects in there that I no longer want to work on but am not ready yet to admit.
I think we should work on our UFOs together – what do you say? I mean, I’ve got plenty of them to choose from. Maybe I just need to pick 5 of them, make a decision about each of them, and then pick one to work on until it is finished. But not the DWR. That’s a forever project. 🙂
Alright y’all – what’s your oldest UFO? How many do you have? and do you want to work on finishing them up with me?
oh brother, I don’t know if I’m game to say. I made curtains for a 15′ space in 1987. They started to bleach almost immediately so they were pulled down and used for anything and everything imaginable, including a quilt for the spare room. Not long after we moved and it was packed up. Unpacked, continued with, packed up. Unfortunately over the years it has been restarted half a dozen times, but not with any vigour and is therefore still waiting to be finished.
Hmmmm….I have resisted counting but since I just retired this month maybe one day I will wake up inclined to start looking through the closet, bins, containers and cupboards in garage. I think the oldest is 1999, so that’s 15 yrs at least. It’s a appliquéd quilt with about 3 dozen fancy chickens/ roosters/ hens. Not sure why I even thought it was cute but I liked the teacher and all my friends were in the class. Probably time to let it go….
I’m embarrassed to admit that I cut out a cute ladybug baby quilt for my granddaughter (when her mom was expecting her). She is now 9 1/2 years old. Sheeeesshhhh.
My oldest UFO is just over 9 years old. It is a Meyers/Badger Quilters Newsletter cover that I fell in total love with. The pp pattern looked easy (I had, after all, mastered paper piecing having taken a beginner class!), and I thought it would be perfect for our bed. Hmmmmm It has taught me a lot and I am 2/3s of the way thru it. I would love to complete it before it turns 10!! Until I finish that that, I can’t even think about the 20+ UFOs, the 2 OPPs, the 30+ PIGS. And yet, more fabric seems to follow me home or come thru the mail … I would love to join you!! And will be happy if I finish my original UFO!!
I bought 2 vintage quilt tops at auction about 6-7 years ago when I first began quilting. They’re hanging in my closet waiting for backs and quilting. I discovered I liked piecing more than anything else so they wait patiently…
My name is Cindy and I definitely have quilters (sewist) ADD. I probably have 40 UFOs. My oldest project has to be at least 15 years old. It started as a BOM, but I’ve dubbed it block of the year. The name is cats in my garden. I only have 5 blocks done, 7 to go. They are colored with crayons, embroidered with perl cotton then assembled. Geez, what was I thinking? Then there are the garments, even a well made, hand tailored jacket that just needs the lining finished. It won’t fit any longer! Then all the tops, projects in boxes, neatly arranged in 2 houses. And now for the bomb, I bought a storage unit a few months ago for $700. Included was a fabulous 3 X 6 cutting table with 2 folding leaves making it bigger. 2 industrial sewing machines, a serger, notions, 10 bins of fabric containing at least 30 yds in each bin. HELP!
I’m proud to say that my old UFO is only about a year and a half. It’s a gigantic king size made completely of 60 degree diamonds. Lots of set-in pieces. In order to work on it, I have to lay the entire thing out on the floor and line it up, sew a seam, lay it back out, repeat about 1000 times. It’s about half finished. Maybe one day…
My oldest UFO is Also a DWR. I have been working on it on and off for about 30 years. I am hand quilting it. It is a little more than halfway done. I go through spurts of enthusiasm. I’ll work on mine with you.
Maybe 8 years? I haven’t been as good as you are about keeping track of when I’ve started a project. But I have a lone star that I started, and stopped while I thought about how I wanted to go about bordering it (it’s a quiltsmart project), and then got distracted by many more projects and UFO’s since. My name is Siobhan, and I have Quilter’s ADD. 🙂
Welcome, Siobhan! 🙂
I am trying to finish a project I started for my step daughter almost three years ago. It is a queen size quilt made from a Cinderella panel for a soft book for a child. She saw one made up at a local annual craft show and asked me if I would make one for her. The one she saw was mostly in blues but she could only find the pink panel,so when I went to figure how I wanted to put them together I used some blue to help accent it. I just finished quilting it yesterday so we will see how long it takes me to get it trimmed and bound lol.
Mine is 2 years old, but it’s also the only thing that I can work on at the moment. I was trying to decide whether to finally baste and hand-quilt that one or start a new project, and the Type-A in me won out. The top spent over 2 years languishing in a drawer, because the mere thought to having to baste the behemoth (I don’t know how big it is in inches, but it’s 240 cm x 250 cm, so…big) made me forget about it on purpose. I finally started hand-quilting it after discovering basting spray (who knew?) that available here in Germany. I drag it everywhere with me when I have to sit during my kids’ activities (soccer and swim practice, anyone?), because this introvert hates making small talk with the well-connected mommies (who, to be fair, apparently don’t want to talk to me, either). I’m guessing it will take me about 1.5 years to finish.