Unfinished Objects

Yesterday I sat down at my sewing machine for the first time since finishing Emma’s stocking. (I know this because the machine was still loaded with the dark green thread I used for final stocking assembly.) After such a long break, I was itching to get something done, so I jumped back into the Lucky Stars BOM…from 2013. The pieces above are for the December block, and within a couple hours I had all 8 sections pieced together…and then I ran out of thread. I had to postpone final assembly until I can get more. And until then, it joins my pile of UFOs.

Unfinished objects. UFOs.

Like most crafty people, I’ve got a never-ending list of things I’d like to make and a bad habit of starting on one, only to get distracted by something new before I finish it. Here’s the list of UFOs currently sitting patiently around my house, just waiting to be picked up again:

Vent cover. This is a round, quilted piece about 18″ in diameter that looks kind of like a placemat, and it has a specific purpose — to cover the floor vent under my desk at work to block the airflow and keep things an iota warmer than usual. (Right now, there’s a book over the vent.) I made it from leftover triangles from Emma’s triangle quilt, so it’s stitched, backed, and quilted with half-finished binding. I just need to hand stitch the binding onto the front side. That’ll take an hour, tops.

Washi top. I bought the Washi Dress pattern several months ago and back in…October, maybe?…and picked out fabric. I altered the pattern to match my measurements and made a muslin of the fitted portion of the bodice to make sure my adjustments were good (and they were). That’s the hardest part, and it’s complete! But I never took the final steps of making the real top. This will require several hours, but it should be really nice when it’s done.

Guest room curtain. Before Emma was born, I had grand plans to spruce up our guest room, including making a wall o’ curtains with some pretty fabric. I bought a huge roll of fabric that was not exactly cheap, and I got a curtain rod at Ikea, so I have all the materials I need. Working with large swaths of fabric on my small sewing machine can be challenging, but even with that concern this is probably only a 3-4 hour project.

Lucky Stars BOM. Once I finish up the December block, I’ll have 6/12 of the 2013 blocks completed. Not bad, especially considering I didn’t start working on them until October! But that means I’ve got 6 more to wrap up. These are fairly quick — I can go from nothing to finished block (cutting, piecing, pressing, sewing) in 1.5-3 hours depending on how complex it is.

Play tent. This one’s for Emma, and first I planned to have it done by Christmas and then I planned to have it done by the end of vacation. Neither of those happened. I ended up unhappy with the dowels I originally bought from Lowe’s — they were closet rods, which I ultimately decided were a little TOO beefy — so I returned them and ordered some smaller ones online. (It’s difficult to find 6-foot dowels/rods that aren’t thick closet rods.) I’m still waiting for the new ones to arrive.

Apron. I started working on this as a gift for my sister-in-law a couple years ago when I was in Charlotte for the holidays. I bought fabric and started cutting the pieces according to a cute pattern I’d bought, and had planned to sew it on my mom’s old machine while I was there. Ha! Why did I think I would have time for that in the midst of being with my family for the holidays? Of course I didn’t finish it, and bought her something else for Christmas that year. I’m debating whether I’d rather finish it or just repurpose the fabric for something else.

Tree skirt. That same year, I also worked on a Christmas tree skirt. I pieced together the top (several large wedges that formed a big ring), but never gave it a backing or binding. Now that time has passed, I don’t even really like the fabrics anymore, so there’s not much point to finishing it. It’ll take 10 minutes to cut it apart and throw the pieces into the scrap bin.

Whew! That was a lot, but really, most of these are pretty close to being done. I’m toying with the idea of setting a February goal to clean out this list by either finishing the UFO — or, if it’s something I’m not interested in anymore, salvage the fabric for my scrap bin. Since I’ve got 4 new projects already in the early stages for 2014 (2 quilts, 1 embroidery piece, 1 cross stitch sampler), it’d be nice to get rid of the backlog first!