Category: finishing

Ten Years is Not a Long Time for a Quilt

If you think that passing ten years without starting that quilt sounds like a lot, let me assure you it is not. That time will go by quicker than you think. Some twenty-seven years ago, I bought some coordinating Daisy Kingdom fabrics from a big box store. I was going to make a dress with a matching apron and bloomers for my then toddler. The fabric was adorable – it was tan with navy plaids and little zoo animals sprinkled about. I already had the pattern, and I’d already made the same outfit with watermelon themed fabrics, so how hard could it be to make a second with different fabrics? Harder than you would think. I never started the second dress with the cute plaid zoo fabrics.

My daughter quickly outgrew that dress pattern and the fabric seemed to “baby-ish” for her once she was 3 or 4. So, I just put it into my stash for later. Years passed. Then, fortune shined on the cute fabric as a work friend was having a baby, hooray! The fabric had lots of neutrals so it would have been cute for any baby. I set to work making a log cabin baby quilt using my favorite Eleanor Burns book from her wonderful Quilt in a Day series. I got all the strips cut and made all the blocks in a matter of a few days, then I lost momentum. The friend moved away, and we lost touch. I never finished the quilt. The couple even had another baby, and I still didn’t finish the quilt.

Additional years passed (it had been over ten years since I bought the original fabric) and now it was I who was pregnant again. I could just finish the quilt for my own baby! Alas, as every quilter knows, when there is an exciting new quilting occasion, we can’t help but go buy something new. I had my eye on this adorable print of babies sleeping on cows with the words Moon Beams and Sweet Dreams on little banners. I’d used the same fabric for a quilt for my best friend’s baby just a couple years ago and it was still in print. So, the poor little plaid zoo quilt still didn’t get finished.

It’s been twenty-seven years now and I still have the blocks and already cut borders in my stash. They just need to be sewn together, backed, quilted and bound… not too much work, but where am I going to find the motivation with so many other quilting distractions all around me? My son is now 16 and he always talks about “when [he’s] a Dad”, so maybe the little plaid zoon quilt will have a future as a grand-baby quilt. What’s another ten years or more anyway?

Finish that Quilt

UFOs. We all have them. Those Un-Finished Objects that we quilters have in great abundance. We start a project, get well into it and then get distracted by something shiny. That poor quilt that was once the sole object of our affection is now on the bottom of the “to do” pile. Who knows when it will get done.

I feel compelled to brag that just last week I finished a project that was 23 years old. That’s right, the big two-three. I can’t tell you how many times I cleaned my sewing space, took it out, looked at it admiringly, only to fold it back up and put it in the “finish you later” pile.

This time, something was different. It just felt like it was time. Oddly, once I got back down to it, it took me less than one hour to finish. This really calls into question my previous posts about what to do with UFOs. Recently, I’ve been a strong advocate of “if you can’t finish it, then repurpose it or give it away…. give the poor thing a chance!”. Finishing a 23-year-old project really makes me think that it’s OK to keep an unfinished project for, well…. at least two decades!

Giddy with this accomplishment, I’ve gone on to finish not one but TWO more unfished projects that are each at least ten years old or more. I guess what this really says is, it’s never too late. Next up, I have some curtains that I started at least six years ago when I moved into my current house. If I can pull that off, then I feel very confident in that dress I was going to make for my son’s graduation in 2007. Fortunately, I have another son’s graduation next year in 2027. I really feel like I have a sporting chance with this one!