Day 6 of the 31 day blogging challenge and I am really grateful I did not have to think up topics. Also this topic is hard.
What’s my oldest UFO? Well up until two0sih years ago I had a good answer for that!
Way back in 1995 or so when I started to really get into quilting, I started a quilt for kid #2. I had all these scraps from sewing clothing AND had just discovered this place in Quebec that made bedding and sold off their scraps in 100 pound garbage bags, which was SUPER COOL.
Somewhere in this pile of cast offs but still decent to work with was a huge amount of pinks and blues and four lonely Holly Hobbie panels. I incorporated those and a ton of strips into what I could probably call my first moder-ish improv quilt.
And? I had recently been gifted a serger for mother’s day! So what better way to put it to use than serge this all together! Some of the fabric was super flimpy, even if it was poly cotton sheeting.
Then in a stunning display of further brilliance, somewhere along the line I decided I should HAND QUILT it.
I don’t know if you know anything about hand quilting, but one thing which is maybe not known but also should never come up because WHO would think of this is – you really cannot hand quilt through any seams that have been SERGED. It’s too thick with too much thread on that seam.
Anyway. That quilt followed me around the province for a while and every so often the husband and I would take a stab at it. (Get it?? Ha!.. er.. oh well.)
Finally, not only does that kid grow up and move out and have a life of her own, most of the rest did too. Then she bought a house and we had a pandemic and I ran out of things to do. So I told myself finished was better that perfect, and this kid was also turning THIRTY so maybe if I finally finished this quilt it would make a great present?
I put it on the longarm and finished it off. It was a hot mess but it was DONE.
Or, done being quilted. You see, I was using up scraps and had done three sides in Prairie Points, which meant I had to very carefully turn down the back edge and hand stitch or carefully machine stitch it in place. Fearing another decade passing before any hand stitching taking place, I machine stitched it the best I could, Sometimes twice in some places.
She got it that Christmas.
