UFO Week Day #5

 

    My apologies.  I completely forgot to take progress shots for this UFO.  I was so excited to work on it I didn't even think about photos until I was stitching the binding down (by machine).  Maybe the story behind this UFO will make up for the lack of photos.  

    The quilt top (including the borders) was made in 2006/2007.  The Tulip Wreath was a class sample I designed to teach free motion machine embroidery.  That is a technique where you fuse the shapes in place then drop the feed dogs on your machine and draw around the shapes with thread.  It is a little like free motion quilting, but less stressful and without batting and backing.  The stitching is done only on the top layer of the quilt.

    Like many of my UFO's once the top is made, I have what I need, so I am in no hurry to finish the project.  This one ended up being hung in the bathroom in the quilt shop I owned in Pennsylvania.  Until it was STOLEN.  Yes, some unscrupulous person used the bathroom and decided to take this quilt top right off the wall!  We discovered it missing on a Monday morning after a particularly busy weekend.  At the time, the husband of one of my employees worked for the FBI, so she jokingly taped a huge "X" of crime tape over the area where the quilt previously hung.  We made a big deal out of telling anyone in the shop that our bathroom was a crime scene and that a top had been stolen.  I was amazed that someone actually took the unfinished quilt top.  I'm well aware that people shop lift, but that top was photographed and on the front of my published pattern!  The fabrics were discontinued, and we had never sold a matching kit, so anyone local that saw the quilt top would know it was the same one on the front of my pattern.  Who was the thief going to show it to?  I assumed the person that sole it was someone just traveling through, and I would never see that top again.

    Fast forward a year or more.  One evening before a group meeting in the shop, I was at the cutting table surrounded by customers.  Someone made the remark that "quilters don't steal".  I laughed and said, "Sure they do".  We had a whole sewing machine stolen from the classroom and I mentioned that the Tulip Wreath sample was stolen right off the wall.  Then someone asked, "What do you do?"  Still feeling a bit snarky about the incident more than a year later, I replied "Not much I can do, so I just say a little prayer every night that whoever took it rots in hell".  I know, I know, not my finest moment, but I did laugh a little when I said it if that helps.

    Low and behold about two weeks later a plain brown envelope, with no return address arrived in the mail.  You guessed it.  The Tulip Quilt sample was inside.  I have to believe that whoever took it was standing at my cutting table that night and heard what I said.

    After its traumatic experience, the Tulip Quilt deserved to be custom quilted.  I haven't really felt my skills were up to par until now, so when I looked for my next UFO project, I decided today was the day!  I filled the yellow area with free motion loops and wiggles.  I used the computer to stitch a beautiful design on the floral triangles.  Back to loops and squiggles in the lavender border using matching thread and then I attempted some (free-hand) sort-of-straight with rounded corners quilting in the dark green border.  I also used the dark green thread to go back through the wreath.  That tacked that area down and attached it to the batting and backing so that everything lays flat.  Machine binding using a darker green fabric.  There is no way I have the same shade of green batik from 2006!

The Tulip Wreath has a few scars from when it was being held captive.  There are some dirty marks that won't come out.  That is ok with me.  For the time being I have hung it over the bar (Or butler's pantry if you watch a lot of HGTV) just off my kitchen for a touch of spring.  The runner on the counter is an oldie, but a goodie.  It is simply a half yard of a double border print with a basket appliques on each end.  I'm sure it dates back to the 1990's as well.  Anyone remember Debbie Mumm?  She was very popular in the last millennium. 

    FYI, I did get the binding on the Perfect Tilt quilt.  Now I just need an evening and a really good movie to get that binding hand stitched in place.  Any suggestions?

UFO Week, Day 4.

     I am making some progress on the blue and orange Perfect Tilt quilt on my longarm.  One thing I have learned this week is that custom quilting with the computer is not my "thing".  I love the results, but I am just too impatient to dedicate that much time to a UFO quilt.  Much like machine embroidery, 10% of the time you are actually doing something the other 90% you are watching the machine run.  I much prefer to use the ProStitcher to quilt edge-to-edge designs.  

    While the longarm was doing its thing, I kept my fingers busy by embroidering the stem on my scribble flower.  I know this project doesn't qualify as a UFO, but it did allow me to accomplish something while I was watching the machine run.  Almost.  I stitched the entire stem, took a look at my handwork and decided that the stem stitch looked too wimpy to hold the flower up!  After removing the stem stitches, I decided to couch a piece of 1/8" green ribbon in place to make the stem look sturdier.  I happen to have an acceptable shade of green in my ribbon bin.  If you look closely, you can see that spool is from "Woolworths, America's Craft Store".  Any guesses how long that spool has been in that bin? (Hint, the U.S. company ceased operations in 1997!)

    

    Itching to sew something, I decided to add backing and batting to this project and do a little echo quilting around the flower on my domestic machine.  "Domestic" is a fancy word for my regular sewing machine.  I haven't done much hand guided machine quilting since having access to a longarm.  I thought I should brush up on those skills.  They did indeed need some brushing up!  

    After echo quilting the center, I decided to pull out my collection of hand quilting stencils and mark those dark, pieced borders.  I used the hand quilting stencils even though I would be doing the stitching by machine.  I made sure I selected a continuous line design.  Finding a marking device that will show on all of those shades was a challenge.  I finally decided on a white chalk pencil.  Making a stencil fit and wrap around a corner can be a challenge.  I made it happen, it is not perfect, but I can live with it.  Black binding and I can call this WIP complete.

    I did promise that I would dig deeper into my UFO pile for the next project.  To live up to my promise, I decided that today would be Small Project Day.  The piece on the right is one of the oldest UFO's I own.  I'm sure it dates to the mid 1990's!  Imperfectly perfect, the color balance is off, the quilting is.... pretty bad.  That is probably why it ended up in the UFO pile.  There was still some reason that I have never tossed it.  Maybe it is to remind me of how my skills have improved?  I finished it off by adding some additional quilting so that it would lay flat and then added a ridiculous green ticking stripe binding that is almost as old as the top.

    I had time for one more small project.  The small piece with the multicolor squares is probably 15 years old.  I originally made it as an example of how seams should be pressed.  I was told by another reputable quilter that pressing all the seams in one row in the same direction is not a good idea.  I had to test the theory, and this is that sample.  For years this small project had a different black border.  It ended up in the UFO pile because that border fabric was just not black enough.  I removed the old border and replaced it with a black with tiny dots and finished it off with some straight-line machine quilting.

    The center of the quilt is quilted from corner to corner in magenta colored thread.   The black border is quilted in black and the quilting lines are random widths apart.  The white chalk line helps me know where to pivot on the corner.

A quick machine binding with magenta fabric and this project is finally finished.

    Working on these small projects reminded me of a woman that worked for me years ago.  She saw me making a small quilt and remarked "You know, if you make those seams a little longer, that will fit a bed".  I had to laugh.  Small quilts really are the same amount of work, can have the same number of pieces and are usually made in the same patterns as larger quilts.  There is just something fun about seeing the smaller version.

    

    I will get to enjoy these small quilts for (hopefully) years to come.  Now that they are finished, I have added them to the wall in my sewing room.  The wall behind my longarm holds the sign from the shop I owned in Pennsylvania, an old Mountain Mist batting wrapper, a watercolor by Diana Phalen and some cross stitch pieces that I designed years ago.  Now I have added these three quilts to the collection, and I still have plenty of space to fill. 

    Notice that the longarm is empty.  I forced myself to finish that blue and orange quilt before I hung the small quilts for this photo.  Even with all the complaining, I do have to say that I am happy with the way the quilting turned out.  Maybe it was worth all that effort.  I am off to make and then sew the binding on the Perfect Tilt project before I start on anything else!  I won't be able to call that project finished for a while.  The small quilts got the machine binding treatment.  The Perfect Tilt project is a larger quilt and I will be stitching that binding by hand.

BTW I LOVE that you are sharing the projects you are finishing on Facebook.  Keep up the good work!

Day #3 of UFO Week

     It is Day #3 and I'm feeling pretty confident about my machine quilting skills now that I have completed the sacrificial table runner from Day 2.  Some might say overconfident, but what have I got to lose?  I have plenty of UFOs to practice on!  I went searching for a larger project.

    This quilt top has these great diamond shapes that are begging for custom quilting.  The top is in the ballpark of a twin size quilt, without borders.  The lack of borers is the problem with this quilt.  This top was made many years ago, and now the navy batik fabric is impossible to match.  Dye lots change.  Batiks are hand dyed so even bolts from the same manufacturer can vary in shade from shipment to shipment.   Normally I would have set aside fabric for the borders from the same bolt of fabric.  Maybe I did?  If I did, it was in the ballpark of 8 - 10 years ago.  All I know is that I don't have that shade of navy in my sewing room now.  If you look closely, you can see the threads where I ripped a border length off that I thought would be a "good enough" match.  It wasn't good enough.  This quilt deserves better.  I pulled this top from that pile of tops that "need something".  It is going right back in that pile, because it still needs something - a border! 

    Meanwhile, in my search for the elusive border batik, I came across a good size piece of navy print batik backing fabric.  It is a fun print, but definitely not right for the striped quilt above.  The navy is a good shade, but the print is directional.  There are birds that all face the same way so in my mind it has a definite top and bottom.  

    I tossed the backing fabric to the side and it landed next to this navy and orange quilt.  I didn't like that backing for the multi color batik quilt, but it looked pretty cool with this navy and orange sample of the Perfect Tilt.  If I were shopping for backing for this project, I may not have selected this one, but the more I look at it, the more I like it!  I love a quilt with an interesting backing fabric.  Off to the quilting machine!

      One thing I have learned is that I think longarm machine quilting looks best when the areas are outlined and/or stitched in the ditch.  In the Nine Patch a Day Group on Facebook, we have discussed that pressing your seams open (and leaving them pressed open) can be an issue if you plan to stitch in the ditch.  The quilting machine can pop those stitches and create problems in your patchwork.  YOU may not plan to stitch in the ditch, but believe me, your professional quilter probably does.  That is the way they travel from place to place without having a zillion ends to tie off.  Luckily, I had followed my own advice and pressed these seams properly.

    Step one after loading the quilt and making sure it is perfectly square is to stitch in the ditch or 1/4" in around all of those orange print sashing areas.  I chose an orange top thread to blend in.  Orange and blue are complimentary colors.  That means that orange thread will REALLY stand out on blue fabric and the reverse.  With a navy and white backing, I chose white bobbin thread to help hide my not so perfect quilting skills.  I could have chosen navy, but I had 2 white bobbins wound and ready to go.  Decision made. 

    The next step was to stitch in the ditch around all of those large orange squares and just outside those navy tilted squares.  

    All of that stitching - very little of it actually shows - took FOREVER.  Slow and steady wins the race in this case.  This UFO is going to be a multi-day project.  I simply don't have the energy or brain power to choose designs, position and crop them to fit into the background areas of the blocks.  Whew, that took far longer than I expected.  Tomorrow is another day. 

    This orange and blue quilt is also a relatively new UFO.  It is only about 2 years old.  I don't want to give you the impression that ALL of my UFO's are recent, so I will take a deeper dive to the bottom of the pile for the next one! 

UFO Week, Day #2

 

    Busy day today.  In order to stay on track in my quest to finish UFOs this week, I chose an easy one.  Many of you saw this quilt top on my design wall a few weeks ago in the Nine Patch A Day Group on Facebook.  The top was made in March of 2020.  The pattern is Any Twelve Will Do featuring the Perfect Rectangle Ruler that I design for Creative Grids.  At the time I offered a free handout for the pattern.  Since that time it has been published as a Cut Loose Press pattern and is available to purchase here: Any 12 Will Do Runner PDF Pattern – CutLoosePress™

UFO Week, Project #2:  Any Twelve Will Do Runner.

Requires: Quilting and binding.

The Reason this project is a UFO: I'm going to be honest and say the real reason is sloppy pressing and dirty marks.  Sometimes I don't practice what I preach.  In a perfect world I would always press my seams open, and then press them to one side.  Many people don't think that will make a difference, but if you are really picky about the way your finished projects look, I promise you it does.  

    This runner top was tossed to the side because I was unhappy with the way the seams were laying.  Having just rolled them to the side, I could easily see which direction the seams were pressed. Normally that isn't a problem, especially if they are in some symmetrical pattern. In this case the seams were going every which way and it was OBVIOUS.  I knew that pressing them open and then to one side would fix the problem, but I kept telling myself it didn't matter.  

    There are areas in this quilt top where lots of seams come together.  In my effort to finish quickly, I didn't check the bottom of my iron.  Running the iron over the lump where seams came together created a dirty spot on the white fabric.  Always on the white fabric.  More irritated at myself than anything else, I tossed it into the UFO pile.

Progress:  Some projects were meant to be a learning experience.  I decided to sacrifice this one to my learning curve on the longarm machine.  I did take the time to repress the most offensive of the seams before loading the backing, batting and runner into my Handi Quilter.  It is important for you to know that I only quilt my own projects.  99% of them are quilted using the computerized ProStitcher and an all over pattern.  I don't do "show-off" quilting.  The machine does have amazing features that I rarely use.  I also own several of those fancy quilting rulers, many of which are still in the package.  No time like the present to play around a little and see what I can do with the right tools.

    First of all, custom quilting is worth every single penny.  You have no idea how involved it is until you have tried it yourself.  I have walked a mile (or stitched a few thousand yards of thread) in those shoes, and I am here to tell you that it isn't as easy as they make it look!  For allover designs you set the design and let the machine do its job.  To custom quilt you have to create designs, resize, define then crop either inside or outside of an area, reposition start and stop places and use other features that I haven't even attempted.  I wouldn't say it is difficult, but it is technically precise and challenging.  The learning curve is steep.  Especially if you take my route and experiment rather than watching the educational videos.  Skipping that important information was probably a mistake!

    For example, when you crop a design, the machine stitches straight, along the invisible line you created when you established the crop.  As you can imagine, it is difficult to establish the position of an invisible line.  Now that I have done it 24 times, I am beginning to get the hang of my machine.  I wanted those stitch-in-the-ditch lines IN the ditch.  Now I'm not so sure that is a reasonable expectation.  What I should have done is to make sure that the blue thread would be stitching on the blue fabric.

    I did learn to crop, center, use rulers to stitch in the ditch, invert and mirror image designs.  The dirty, lumpy runner was the perfect project to experiment on.  There were no "What if I screw up" moments of panic.  I wasn't worried about making this project worse. The fact is, the imperfect quilting actually made it better. 

  When it came off the quilting machine, I pressed, trimmed and stitched the binding in place.  This project got the fused in place and stitched in the ditch by machine binding treatment.  It is done.  Finished.  Officially graduated from the UFO pile.

    Naturally I see every mistake and there are plenty to see.  I tossed it on the kitchen table for the photo shown above.  My husband came in, took one look and said, did you quilt that?  I confirmed that I did.  His response was "That's impressive".  Proof that you are always your own worst critic.  Let others enjoy your work without burdening them with your own disappointment.   

    

    

    

Welcome to UFO Week!

 

    Last week, the addition of new shelves in my wholesale department required moving, sorting and finding another home for several items. (The "wholesale department" is the closet where I store the patterns that I sell to quilt shops, who eventually sell those patterns to you.)  When I move one thing in my sewing area it sets off an avalanche of other moves.  The result was the unearthing of several more projects that were added to my UFO pile.  I decided that something had to be done and the time is now.  I have officially deemed this week as UFO Week.

    I began sifting through the pile, sorting the tops that need to be quilted from those that need borders and the quilted pieces that only need bindings.   I ended up with another pile that needs something... I'm not sure what it is that they need, but something has prevented me from thinking that the top is finished. That something is the reason the project landed in the UFO pile.

    I started to wonder.  What is the difference between a UFO and WIP?  Quilters like to use cute terms and abbreviations to label their work.  WIP stands for Work In Progress.  Aren't all unfinished projects works in progress?  Admittedly some progress is slow... very slow, but when do you decide there will be no more progress?  Why is it that some unfinished projects have hope as a WIP and others are banished to the corner or back of the closet as a UFO?  WIP projects are like those leftovers that you wrap and place in the frig with good intensions of using them for something tasty.  Then they get moved to the back, behind the things you use daily.  The next thing you know they are a UFO weeks old and headed for the trash.  What happened to the potential they had?  What keeps a WIP from being banished to the bottom of the UFO bin?

    With my Handi Quilter cleared of the latest project and not yet piled with stacks of deadline projects, I have decided to dedicate at least a part of each day toward making a dent in that UFO pile.  The tops that are simply waiting to be quilted is the easiest place to start.  

UFO Week, Project #1:

Project: Easy Street Quilt

Requires: To be quilted and bound.

The reason it is a UFO: This one is more of a WIP.  It is not quite 2 years old.  It is the sample featured on my Easy Street pattern that features the Straight Out Of Line ruler by Karla Alexander for Creative Grids.  Once the project photo is taken, I don't need to finish the project unless I want to show it off.  I will be vending at the quilt show in Jacksonville, Florida in September, so now is the perfect time to finish this project.      The REAL reason it is a UFO is that after assembling the blocks and taking the photo I noticed that the random arrangement of the blocks, wasn't as random as I originally thought.  Two blocks featuring the monkey print are facing the same way in the top row.  I set the quilt top aside, intending to take one of those blocks out and rotate it 90 degrees and put it back in before quilting the quilt.  Months later, those two blocks don't bother me anymore.  This is a baby quilt.  Will the baby that uses this quilt care about those monkeys that face the same way?  I doubt it.  Will that child not get into Harvard because their baby quilt had a block that may have looked better facing a different direction.  I think not.  I know for a fact that no baby will every enjoy using this quilt if it stays in my UFO pile.  Done is better than perfect.

Progress:  I have lots and lots of fabric in my sewing room so finding a backing for this project was easy.  It is not the perfect shade of green, but in my effort to save the life of a UFO, a fun backing is better than none.  I loaded it onto my Handy Quilter Amara.

    Next, I had to choose a thread color and quilting pattern.  I normally quilt with 50 wt. embroidery thread for one single reason.  I own a TON of it.  I have almost every color imaginable, so why not use it?  For this project I had the skimpy spool of the perfect color or the much larger spool of the "ok color".  I decided to play it safe and go with the ok color!  Running out of thread would certainly dampen my enthusiasm for finishing this project.

    My longarm is computerized so quilting is as simple as selecting the design you want and telling the machine the size of your quilt.  The computer makes the magic happen.  For this project I chose a curved design that looks like a monkey wrench to me.  There are monkeys on the fabric, so it seemed like a good choice.  While the Amara was doing its thing, I searched out a length of the border fabric that was cut from the edge of another quilt long ago.  It was more than enough to make the binding for this project.  (Side note: That border and binding fabric are a texture print that I designed many years ago for Timeless Treasures Fabrics.  I created the texture by doing a layered Crayola rubbing on the front of my refrigerator!)

    When the quilting machine was finished stitching the allover design, I trimmed and then stitched the binding in place.  I like to finish bindings by hand stitching the binding on the back of the quilt, but this quilt got the stitch in the ditch by machine finish.  FINISHED - that feels good!

Day one of UFO week was very productive!

Why don't you join me and celebrate UFO Week by finishing up a few of your own UFO's?