In my quilting log, I keep records of my finishes, and I like to note whether a finish was a UFO (for my purposes a UFO was started in the prior year or earlier) or a new start. If I am working start to finish on a quilt over January 1st, I tend to annotate it as a WIP, so I know it may have been started the previous year, but never languished waiting for attention.
When I got back from the last trip, I had a few basted quilts waiting for me. One of those was a denim quilt I wanted to finish for DD#2's birthday. DD#2 started asking me for a new denim quilt a couple years ago. Her old denim quilt was one of my first bed-sized quilts, and she was just a young girl when I made it. I used a juvenile sheet set to back both it and it's twin, and I added all kinds of fun girly patches on the front. DD#2 still loves that quilt, it's a good childhood memory for her. Her husband is not a fan of it, however. He thinks it looks like a little girls quilt, which of course, it is. Since they don't have any girls, he's never been immersed in girl stuff, so he doesn't get it. DD#2 loves the weight of a denim quilt (I made her a weighted blanket but she doesn't like it as much) but she wanted to know if I could make her a new denim quilt. I have plenty of denim, I could likely make six denim quilts, but what I don't have a lot of is time to make said quilts.
My sister and I were trolling thrift stores looking for craft supplies a few months ago, and I came across a denim quilt top that was finished. It was unremarkable in pattern, but was well sewn. I knew DD#2 would get a denim quilt a lot faster if I just bought that quilt top. Since piecing and quilting are two totally different lists in my life, a finished quilt top could jump the line.
I basted the quilt before I left on the last trip, knowing that I would only have two weeks or less to get it quilted when I got back if I wanted it done for her birthday. Since I didn't piece the top myself, and DD#2 is all about the actual quilting, I decided to quilt something different in every area.
I ended up with some bunching in the sashing strips between rows. Funnily enough the border is OK, so maybe the borders were a little short. I used every shade of purple thread I had, including every variegated thread that included purple. There are about 100 different quilting designs on this quilt, all done freehand.
As usual, the quilting show up better on the back. There is no bunching on the back, so maybe the front is just a matter of denim not being amenable to "quilting it out" as far as imperfections go.
No matter how much I played with the color in editing mode, I couldn't get the close ups right. The purple in the photo where you can see the whole back is closest to the correct color of the minky backing. It's a blue-purple, not a red-purple.
I quilted many long hours, much to the chagrin of my RSI, to get this done in time. I did, however, get to give it to her on her birthday! It was someone's UFO, but not mine. It was my finish #7 for 2025!
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