Calling Our Shots for the UFO Challenge

We are less than a month away from our UFO Challenge! 

Have you been working on your UFOs yet?  If so…awesome!  We can’t wait to see what you’ve done.  If not…you still have time to get started!  You can finish as much as you like, but minimally one thing.  We can manage one thing, right?  

Don’t know about our UFO Challenge?  Check out the original post here: https://keizercottonpatch.blogspot.com/2022/03/coming-august-2022-ufo-challenge.html

Being about a month out, it's getting to be about time to call our shots.  I thought it might be good to share the projects we’re planning to have done – we aren’t just walking the walk, you know?  We have skin in the game (no prizes for us though…those are all yours!) But in going through my UFOs and choosing what I want have ready for our UFO Challenge, I started to observe a couple undeniable trends.

I don’t have any projects that haven’t been started.  All of my UFOs have been started in some fashion, and only a couple are in the block assembly phase.  Don’t worry – that’s not a brag.  My slice(s) of humble pie are coming.  While I am pretty good at not compiling TBD projects and pretty good about getting blocks done…it’s clear I struggle in two key areas: 

1. Once the quilt top is done…I’m done.  It appears once I finish a quilt top it goes into the Bin of Shame with the (many) other finished quilt tops, and there they stay into perpetuity. 
2. When I do manage to get a quilt quilted…apparently unless it’s a shop sample we need done now, it goes into the Pile of Shame to enter the war of attrition.      

As you go through your UFOs, what trends do you notice?  Maybe you really enjoy choosing fabrics and getting things pre-cut, but struggle getting started.  It could be you have no problem getting started, but if it’s a big project your enthusiasm fizzles after your 400th HST.  You might be great at getting projects done but have a hard time getting them through quilting.  Or maybe, you too loathe doing bindings.   

Whatever the case is, knowing where in the process your projects go from projects to UFOs is really helpful because then you can figure out how to avoid the pitfalls that make you set a project aside.  If big projects get overwhelming in a hurry, break it down into manageable chunks.  Sometimes a quilt is a marathon instead of a sprint, but that doesn’t mean you have to do all the blocks at once!  Mete them out in a way that makes sense and feels good to you.  If you also dislike doing binding, try another method.  Now that I have the hang of it (because WOW my first few were rooooough), I am more likely to finish a quilt if I do machine binding versus binding by hand.  Do I prefer the look of hand binding?  Yes. Do I hate doing hand binding?  Also yes. So why fight it? Machine binding it is, and I have found I am finishing more of those fast.  If you struggle to get started, consider pre-cutting so it’s easier just to sit down and sew when you can.  Just because you’ve approached your process a certain way for a long time, doesn’t mean you can’t change tack if there’s a part of the process you don’t enjoy as much.  Like I said in the first UFO Challenge post (linked above), just because you started a project a certain way, doesn’t mean you are locked into finishing it according to that plan.  It’s just fine to change your mind. 

So, all that considered, what does it mean for the UFO Challenge?  Whelp, for me it means there’s a lot of low hanging fruit sitting there in the Pile of Shame waiting for bindings.  I looked, and a few of those are YEARS old.  (Have I mentioned I don’t like to do bindings?)  So let me call those shots…I have NINE UFOs that just need their stupid bindings put on and sewn down.  So I will stop being a whiny baby, and get those bindings done.  I also have seven pillowcases on the Shelf of Shame that need to be done.  One pair is for the bed quilt I made for us…TEN YEARS AGO.  So, I think I can manage to eek out those pillowcases.  The plan had been to use the French seam method, but I think I’m more willing to whip these out on the serger.  And, while I can’t call her shots for her, I know Mom is finishing the quilting on her Swamp Star to have ready, and has another star quilt following that.  She too mentioned several unfinished bindings but I don’t think I can commit her to those just yet (believe me, I’m trying).

UFO Challenge at The Cotton Patch

August 13, 2022, 10:30am

Finish your UFOs - as many as you want - and bring them for Show and Tell! 

Let's celebrate our creativity, ingenuity, and resourcefulness in reimaging our UFOs with some good eats and prizes (not more fabric, Promise!  Think tools and useful notions to help get through that Stash)!  

Coming August 2022: UFO Challenge!

We're not talking about that kind of UFO sighting (if so, we have some questions)

If you're a quilter, odds are good you have some UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) lurking around your sewing space somewhere.  Diane was in her sewing room recently and observed an unfinished project that is so old the fabrics are being reprinted.  Heck, I have some UFOs from WELL before I graduated college...in 2010...UFOs.  All the cool kids have them, and beginners will have them eventually.  

But why though?  Why do we stop working on projects we once started with gusto?  Maybe we fall out of love with the colors or prints.  Maybe we bit off more than we could chew at the time.  Maybe life got busy or weird and we had no choice but to set it aside.  Maybe we got the top done but lose motivation when it comes to getting it quilted and bound. There's as many reasons as there are leaves on trees.  

So what happens then when we get a pile/box/cabinet of stuff we haven't finished?  Designate it as someone's inheritance?  Probably not.  But what we can do is reimagine it.  Just because you start a project a certain way or with certain fabrics doesn't mean it has to stay that way until you get the will to finish it. Consider changing it up - consider swapping the pieces you're not wild about with something you like more, changing how you arrange your blocks, and changing the finished size.  Start a California King and lost your want to?  Finish it as a lap quilt.  Don't like the fabrics anymore and wonder what on earth you were thinking?  There's no shame at all in breaking that project apart and putting the fabric back into your stash to live another day.  

2022 is all about making use of what we have and taking new approaches to familiar things.  So here's our  challenge to you (yes, you!):

UFO Challenge at The Cotton Patch

August 13, 2022

Finish your UFOs - as many as you want - and bring them for Show and Tell! 

Let's celebrate our creativity, ingenuity, and resourcefulness in reimaging our UFOs with some good eats and prizes (not more fabric, Promise!  Think tools and useful notions to help get through that Stash)!  

Don't worry - we'll be walking our talk too...Diane and Lauren will be working on their own UFOs to share!