UFO Situation

Bren said in one of her comments that she was "shocked at the UFO Situation" I had. I have to admit, that made me giggle. While I don't expect my UFO's to sprout alients who will toss me out of my house or eat up my sewing room, I do believe she's right. I DO have a situation. I have too many undone projects.

Truthfully, I never mind having some. As I built a stash and left projects unfinished, I told myself I was preparing for a rainy day. When money was tight, I'd always have something to work on.

Well....it's monsoon season here. It's feeding the urge to finish those old projects and I'm rather liking it.

Last night I started pinning the first strips to my pattern pieces for my strip quilt. This is a great thing to do while watching TV, talking with my kids, or when I'm too tired to do anything else. I tend to be a marathon worker. I'll do all of one step before going to the next because it's faster (and I'm less likely to goof up what up doing.) There is more of this on the agenda today.

Yesterday, the first 'goose' made her way to my geese blocks, so I'll be pressing that first step and possible pinning some of those, too.

Years ago, I did a "UFO newsletter" for a quilting chatting channel. We had great fun with it, we made lists of our UFO's and took great pride in ticking them off. I think that I'll make a new list. I'll have to do some digging, make some decisions on a few projects and lightly prioritize. I say lightly because so often what I want to work on is governed by how I feel. If I choose a project and tell myself it has to be done before doing anything else, I'm often in trouble because if that project becomes tedious or boring, I just won't quilt at all.

So I've given myself permission to, well, be a flake sometimes. I switch from project to project, or better yet, have one in each stage of completion so I can pick and choose what I feel like doing.

I often have one in the piecing stage, one to applique, one ready to mark, one marked and ready to baste, one in the hoop and one in the frame. I usually actually only concentrate on a couple at a time.

So today.... pinning, pressing and some hand quilting. My hoop project is getting far enough along that it's become the current obssession, it should be done within a week, I hope.

And while I get that UFO Situation under control, the Dream Quilt (my version of my masterpiece) will be in the designing stage. I have a lot of the elements figured out, and while writing this morning had a light bulb moment...