Quilting & UFO's

I was in my sewing room and saw ... not a relaxing place to work, but a mess! So I decided to finish a few things and put others away. As I'm doing this I noticed how dark the basement room is so this spring (if spring ever gets here) I plan on painting the room, one wall at a time. So the UFO's must get done! (UFO's = UnFinished Objects) But what happens? I hear about a class or someone has an occasion and I feel compelled to construct something ... or is it what I'd rather do than what needs to be done?

I did get 3 things done. Can't show one of them because it hasn't been gifted, yet. The other 2 are because Janet Root offered a Mystery Wall Hanging workshop that sounded appealing. Janet told us what values and size fabrics to bring from light to dark. I brought 3 separate piles. It's SO difficult to choose when you haven't seen a sample, but I love the challenge. This is my finished class piece.

Chuck & I liked the outcome, but when we were in Tucson last winter I found some quilt shops and felt obligated to support them. I found some AZ fabrics, but didn't take to Janet's class exactly the correct fabrics with me in that pile to showcase it. So I made another one, almost the same, using those fabrics and ignoring all the other UFO's waiting to be done. Here is the result.

And these were requested gifts. Colleen's is made of Downton Abbey fabrics (they have a cat named Downton Tabby). Maggie requested some ruffles. And the one I made for Liz were to her specifications, too.

I also have a comfort quilt almost complete. The quilt for our bed is going very slowly. It took me a long time to figure out why. When I started it, 3 - 4 years ago (Chuck says he'll be dead before it gets done), I decided to hand quilt it as it has wonderful open spaces for that and I LOVE hand quilting. Make that "loved". I have arthritis in my fingers that are now making hand quilting uncomfortable. So this WILL be done in 2014. I will finish hand quilting this section and then switch to machine quilting the border. The poor quilt on our bed is getting thread bare and needs a permanent rest.

I think it will be worth the wait

Now that I know the problem, I'll take a mild pain reliever before I hand quilt. I've also figured out that the quilting is not as visible with busy printed fabrics so machine quilting works fine. The comfort quilt is where I'll practice some "fancy" machine quilting. Then when I do another quilted project that calls for decorative quilting, I won't be quite so intimidated. I keep hearing ... practice, practice, practice. But first, making the sewing space a pleasant place to work.