Back to the Quilting Spree

I don't have any photos for today's update, but I can tell you what I've been up to. Getting those quilt tops completed was the key to getting me back on track with my quilting spree. I only had one quilt top pin-basted, and I started to quilt it Monday. Well, the twins ended up going to their other grandmother's house on Monday afternoon, so I stopped quilting and pin-basted three throw-twin sized quilts while they were gone! That is a lot for me to pin-baste in a day.

I finished quilting the one quilt on Tuesday and started one of the newly basted ones. I finished quilting that one yesterday, started another one and finished that one today. I started quilting another one, and it is half quilted as of right now. I won't get back to quilting until at least Saturday, I am too tired now, and tomorrow is a babysitting day. I am hoping to have all the newly basted quilts quilted by the end of the weekend, but we will see. I saved the smallest of these for last, so it should go quickly. I am trying to come up with a good quilting plan for it.

These quilts had really become a bit of a burden to me. I love making donation quilts, but my sewing time is soon to be cut WAY back, and I just felt these unfinished quilts were a weight on my mind. I have been designing quilts in EQ in odd bits of time here and there, and I really want to be working on those quilts, but I couldn't stand having so many quilts unfinished. I ended up deciding to do some simpler quilting on them, to just get them FINISHED! I wondered if I would feel bad about not trying my best quilting on them, and now that I've quilted a few, I can say that I don't feel bad about it at all. There is something sweet about simple quilting, and the quilts look just fine. Most importantly, they are closer to being usable. I can already tell I am just going to feel so good when I am caught up on these.

I'm in a couple yahoo quilting groups, and most women admit to a few UFO's (UnFinished Objects). When I first started quilting I was a start to finish quilter, and really didn't have any UFO's. Now I tend to work on several quilts at once, which I like, but it does sometimes mean one project gets put to the side in favor of a different one. I have seen more than one woman admit to over 100 UFO's, and I don't even want to think about how oppressive that would be. I had less than 30 and it had me a basket case.

Here is where I am with my current UFO's. I have three quilts waiting for binding, one half quilted, three quilts matched with batting but need backings pieced for them, and four other completed quilt tops. My current piecing projects are the twins I Spy bed quilts, and I may start sewing DD#2's bed quilt as leaders/enders. I have parts of four other quilts cut out, they are very scrappy so I am just cutting bits for each as I work with the correct colors for other quilts or process scraps. I don't really count those as UFO's since I haven't sewn a stitch on any of them, and the kits I am making for them are not yet complete. I have one long term quilt started, but no imminent plans to work on it, and I'm OK with that.

DD#3 starts back to college on August 22nd, and that is when I will really have to cut back on sewing. I am trying to finish up as much as I can before that day comes around, and right now I am feeling pretty good about my progress. There are a bunch of things going on right now, so I sew when I can, and try not to stress about it when I can't. The not stressing part is getting easier as my stack of quilt tops go down. I am down to 8 1/2 to quilt, and that is a good thing!