UFO for 7 years!

I know 7 years is a long time, but there is a reason...

A couple of weeks ago my dad came back to the UK after nearly 5 years - he lives in the Far East.

Before he went on his travels 7 years ago he had requested I make a quilt for him to take with him. He had wanted to take a quilt I had made my mother whilst she was poorly. I just couldn't let that one go so far, so I offered to make one for him and his new girlfriend - she is now is wife and they make a lovely couple!

So I set to work making a quilt for my dad. Gek, my dads wife, had chosen a quilt design called Wedding Quilt by Kaffe Fassett from his book Passionate Patchwork. It is a fabulous mixture of stars and pin wheels.

I will admit I have been procrastinating on this quilt because of the emotions attached to when I started it - it was the year after mum died and the grief was over powering.

Anyway, my dad visited on Sunday and mentioned the quilt, which has been languishing under my bed. I now feel ready to get it finish. The top is complete:

It is big! Gek chose the shot cottons and Kaffe Fassett fabrics along with a pale green background.

They are all lovely. Time has changed how I view this quilt, it is now an exciting project to finish!

I have disregarded the polyester wadding and discovered a hole in the backing which I think I will patchwork with from shapes from the front. Then we are good to quilt!

How old is your oldest UFO?

FAL Q1

At the start of the year I signed up for 2013 Finish - A - Long in an attempt to finish some of the UFO's sitting on my cupboard. I decided that projects was a good target and blogged about them in January.

When you sitting in the post Christmas mess, April seems like an age away and there is plenty of time..... right?

Well, no not for me!

January and February raced past in a rush and March hit. I have been panicking about my items for a month!

So I happily report that the UFO pin wheels quilt has just been finished!

I am going to be honest, I didn't enjoy this quilt. The backing kept folding and creasing, the thread broke whilst quilting and I simply lost patience with it. I unpicked it so many times. I think it was taunting me!

I considered unpicking the whole thing and starting again or even worse ripping the whole thing  apart and binning it... but then I thought about the little girl who is getting it. Will she care there are tucks and folds in the back? No. Will she mind that the FMQ is not so great? No. 

She will see the cute fabrics and the FMQ butterflies and love it. It her quilt for snuggling on the sofa.

So I kept going, cursing all the way - even today attaching the binding I had to resist the urge to get the seam ripper out and pull it apart. She will love it, that is all I need to remember...

The next project was much more successful!

I had a half finished piece of quilting that I wanted to turn into a machine mat, but I fluffed the quilting and chunk folded on the edge into the FMQ. I decided actually I wanted to make a cushion and so I did!

We love this on the sofas! The boys use it to cuddle up to, it has been a base whilst having a Nerf war and it had been much loved!

I am so pleased with how well it turned out! I have more scraps from the range so I suspect there will be a few more cushions soon!

The last project was the quilt as you go triangles that I started last year. The progress on this in the last week have been steady as you know, but isn't quite finished!

I have decided to take my time and enjoy it. I love the quilting process so much, but you can kind of get burnt out when a deadline is pushing you around, so I have decided to finish it at a more leisurely pace, but the FAL meant I had to think about it, so I that was win for me too!

I just love the FMQ on this section!

So that is Quarter 1 done.... next to think about Quarter 2....