This year I decided to devote time to completing my UFOs. One of the things I struggle with is finding time. There is always that pretty new fabric, amazing new kit, a needed baby quilt, or a charity item that derails my time. Oh, and of course, customer quilts. Finding time to complete something that has languished for awhile isn't easy or necessarily motiving.
That's why I decided to designate two hours every Friday for UFO time. On the one hand, it doesn't seem like much time. On the other hand, after doing this one little thing in January, I made surprising progress. I spent my January Fridays piecing tops and getting them ready for quilting, plus a few other small projects. Here's my progress:
Project 1: Way back in 2000 (can you believe that was 20 years ago already?) this is the very first "kit quilt" I ever bought. The fabrics are from the Holly Taylor line at Moda and I still love them. The quilt is pattern is no longer in print but I have seen copies of it for sale on ebay and etsy from time to time. It's called Winter's Star from Duck Soup. I spent the first Friday in January assembling the quilt top. It's a wall hanging size with large blocks so it went together rather quickly. Now it's ready for quilting.
Project 2: I purchased my long arm machine not quite a year now and I'm still learning new things. To expand my knowledge, I signed up for a skill builder series from Joyce Lundrigan and Joan Knight over at Methodist Hill Quilting. It is a project based learning series and Joyce and Joan are terrific and fun in their instructional videos. However, being project based, I got behind. Thus, my second UFO project was catching up on at least piecing the top parts of the projects. I did pretty good. I'm current through January 2020 and I'll spent some of my February UFO time doing the lessons. And of course, I'll get a new project for February.
Project 3: Time was also devoted to completing a charity project, a binding and a hanging sleeve. In the interest of full disclosure, I completed these UFOs during football games on Saturdays and Sundays. Now that football season is basically over, I'll need to develop a new strategy for bindings.
So that was my progress in January. "Regular" quilting time was spent working on customer quilts and other projects I have going and I was able to stick to my schedule there as well. Getting three projects done that would have otherwise sat there feels so good. Now I'm ready for February!
I have many UFO's too! I have made a list but after a busy Janurary I still have not started. I like the idea of a designated time to work on the UFO' s . I may adopt a specific time just for the UFO's like you do so that I inch forward on the past and then I can move forward with the new. Kind of like cleaning the house then letting myself relax with a book. When I read in a disaster area I still read but I feel guilty the whole time. Great post.