Monday, May 28, 2007

Seven UFOs

Jemimah has tagged me for the 7 random things meme. Not too long ago, Jade also tagged me, but I misunderstood the tag to be the 7 weird things which I'd already done. So, for both the J's ( ;-) ), here are my 7 random things....

I've noticed that some of the 7 random things posts have pictures, so I thought I'd use that format. Hmmmm. What 7 random-alike things do I have that I could show you? It appears that the most prolific things in my house these days (aside from jars of little things like buttons, bobby pins, toothpicks, etc.) are unfinished projects. Gee, maybe if I post them, it will prod me to actually get to work on them!

So, here's a tour of 7 of my UFO's:

1.This UFO, is potentially the oldest. When the kids were little, we loved the series of books entitled My Father's Dragon. (Highly recommended for those of you who have pre- to early-readers!)They make great read-aloud books and I enjoyed them so much that I decided to make a quilt featuring some of the drawings in the book. I got as far as sketching the plan for the blocks and making the first block, sort of. Poor guy, he still needs his stripes. And, I wanted his wings to be special, so rather than using a gold colored cotton, I used a gold lame. It worked pretty well. I just never got around to finishing it. Maybe someday for a grandchild!

2. Not much to this UFO 'cause we didn't get very far. The "we" part was MeMum, MyDadLovesMeBestSister and me. We each chose a background fabric , then we gave each other 1/3 of our background fabric. We would each make enough 9 patches out of scraps to make a quilt. For each scrap of fabric, we would make three 9 patch blocks -- one from each background fabric. Then, depending on the backround of the block, it would be given to the "owner" of that background. So, when all the blocks were done, we would each essentially have the same quilt but with different backgrounds. (I'm sure I could have explained that better, but I hope you get the idea.) Anyway, the sister has long since abandoned ship. MeMum and I still talk about it as if we'll start working on it again tomorrow. Who knows, maybe tomorrow's the day? (Snort, snort.)

3. This was a quilt that I started when the friendship group had twelve members. I had each of the members make pinwheel blocks out of scraps. The pinwheel part of the quilt is put together and it just needs four applique borders. Two of the borders are done. Two left to go.

4. This quilt top is all done, ready to be quilted. Jewels, Juni, and Gurney came to visit me one year when I lived in Minnesota and we saw a quilt similar to this hanging in a quilt shop. We all decided to make this top, but in different fabrics (pinks and greens, retro 30's prints, etc.) We're all in different stages of completion -- Jewels is the big winner with a finished, quilted quilt.
5. This is a wallhanging I started for my sunroom. I want some beehives out there -- 'cause I love beehives. Probably because I was born in the Beehive State.

6. This quilt is just embarrasing. I've been quilting it for over 10 years. (Ok, tell the truth, probably more like 15 years.) The blocks were made by the girls in the friendship group. There are 77 bow tie blocks + borders. I think I only have about 10 bow ties left to quilt, so I'm certainly more than 1/2 way done.

7. And last, we have 90 Lady of the Lake blocks all ready to be put into a quilt top. Really wouldn't be that much work -- just haven't done it yet. After the friendship group got out of the "making blocks for each other" phase, we had a blue and white fabric swap. We each brought a few yards of several blue prints and then cut them up and shared. This is probably the UFO that I want to get back to the most.

So, a little dip of your toe in my lake of UFOs. My tastes have changed over the years, which probably makes some of those projects hard to pick up again. Hopefully it will happen before someone has to sell them in an estate sale.

XOXO,
Anna

Oh, P.S. I really can't think of anyone who hasn't already done this meme. Do you think I'd have any success at getting Jewels, Juni and Gurney to post 7 random things in the comments??? (Just trying to drag them into blogland..... ;-) )

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I loved your lake of UFOs! Everything looks so lovely and your comments are a hoot!

I would love to really learn how to quilt--right now I'm just flying by the seat of my pants with a simple nine-patch that I hoped to finish for baby boy and some ideas on the 365-challenge. One day...

Until then, I'll enjoy your pictures for inspiration!

XO,
Jill

Sarah and Jack said...

I think all those UFOs would make me feel twitchy. I am trying really, really hard to have a policy of not moving on to a new project until the current project is finished. Mostly because I have that same problem of no longer liking an old project when I finally get back round to it.

rohanknitter said...

I have a couple unfinished quilt projects myself.....actually, I've never finished a quilt project - ha!!
I have a hand-pieced wall hanging from a class I took MANY years ago. It's all done in peach and light blue...then we moved and I haven't had a peach/lt blue room to put it in so I've had zero motivation to finish. I also have a very small wall handing that's finished - my sil gave it to me, it just needs to be quilted and do you think I can get that done??? Maybe I should just stitch in the ditch on my machine and call it a day on that thing.

meggie said...

Really enjoyed seeing your UFOs. It makes me feel I am in good company with mine!lol.
I have a lot of knitting items in that 'forgotten' stage...

Jade said...

Your UFOs are so pretty...I'm sure you'll get around to touching them again, now that you've unearthed them. Maybe you should start a swap called "Finish mine, I'll finish yours". He he he :-)

Anonymous said...

Geez, only 7? Where to start?
1. Katie's high school grad. quilt - still working on applique butterflies. (She just finished her first year of law school.)
2. Still cutting out the bow ties from the blue fabric exchange.
3. Pieced a few blocks of the millennium 2000 square exhange. Were we nuts? 2000 fabrics?
4. Quilting the I Spy quilt from the I Spy fabric exchange.
5. Quilting the "Minnesota" quilt.
6. Looking at the 4" squares we exchanged. There are like 100. Need to set them together. Anna's is finished. (Slut).
7. Cara's wedding quilt. Her 4th anniversary is in July. Bit off a bit more than I could chew with this one I think.
8. What? I'm only allowed 7? There's so much more!

Love the blog Anna! (Jewels how's the flower garden quilt coming along? June - I think we have many of the same UFOs!)

XOXO
Gurney

Louise said...

Oh you make me feel so much better about my ufos. Funny, I had the exact same conversation with a girlfriend yesterday re the change in tastes. She had just picked up a quilt she'd had quilted after piecing it last year and commented that she couldn't get too excited about binding it as she'd moved on to other things. Still, it is nice to see them complete isn't it.