Unfinished Objects

Quilters call projects that they started and haven't finished UFOs.  I usually try to keep ahead of them and not have many waiting but this one hung in my sewing room a year and a half because I really didn't want to finish it.  I took a class in October 2010 and the bottom picture is kind of how it looked when I finished the class.  I wasn't very happy with the outcome but had spent a lot of money for the class.  I love irises and so still wanted to find some use for it.  I finally learned how to do 'free motion quilting' in the class I took with Jessica earlier this month.  I decided to give this piece a try.  Maybe you won't be able to tell the difference between the two but it looks a lot better in person. 

 For those of you that don't know what 'free motion quilting' is I will try to explain.  When you sew the machine has little 'feeder teeth' on the bottom that move the fabric along at a regular pace.  This makes the stitches the same length.  When you do free motion quilting, you lower those teeth and you must move the fabric to create the stitch length.  It is quite difficult to get all you stitches the same length, make a pattern and keep the fabric moving.  I suppose that this is really the 'quilting' part of a quilt.  I love to piece quilts together but I take them to my quilter and she has a 'long arm' quilting machine that stitches through the front, batting in the middle and the back of the quilt.  I don't usually do that part because I am not good at making those stitches the same length and moving the fabric in a smooth manner to create a pattern.  She has a whole room devoted to stretching out the fabric and a large machine that does the stitching.  Her machine also has a 'stitch regulator' on it that makes the stitches the same length.  She is very talented at moving the machine in a nice even manner that creates its own pattern. 
Since the last two 'art quilts' that I have made have been small, I decided I needed to learn this skill for smaller pieces.  It is OK and I liked doing the two smaller pieces of my 'art quilts'  but I am NEVER going to do a large one because I don't have the big machine.  I am glad that I have learned the technique though and will use it when needed.  I will try to practice it now and then too since like everything else, practice makes perfect. 

If you look closely at this piece before I quilted it you can see that the quilting adds more 'dimension' to the work.  I like how the one at the top turned out and am planning to hang it in my kitchen.

SO, one more UFO finished.  I found two other projects in my sewing room this past week so I may tackle them too.  I have a table runner that my friend gave me to piece together several years ago and it is all ready for the free motion quilting.  I think I will get it done first and then work on the other 'art quilt' with applique that is leftover from another class. 

Winter is a good time to find UFOs in your life.  So if you have any, take them out and give them a new look.  They may be better than you thought.