Arapahoe County Quilters

 

A Message From the UFO Queen

Part II - The Next Step ...

Summer is here in full force and you are faced with a pile of UFOs you organized as part of your spring cleaning.  Maybe you have divided your unfinished projects according to the suggestions you found in my previous letter (Part 1) and now you are stuck with another dilemma… where do I go from here, what to start first?   

Maybe you have several quilts that are so close to finishing only if there would be somebody who could sew the binding on for you.  Well there is, just ask at your guild and you will find several skilled quilters who would love to provide that service for you for a small fee.  Maybe you have a pile of quilts that need to be quilted, but as much as you would love to hand quilt them there just is not enough time in a day to do all the chores and also quilt.  Again, there is help available through your local guilt.  Just ask around and you will find several quilters offering their long arm quilting services.  Years ago I too was faced with a dilemma of completing my quilts but not having time for hand quilting, so after much soul searching I finally decided to have a quilt top machine quilted.  My first experience was very positive, within few weeks I had my quilt top back fully quilted and all I needed to do was to put a binding on.  Since then I have had many especially very large quilt tops machine quilted by a local quilter offering her quilting services.  Maybe your UFO pile has couple small tops ready to be quilted, and OK, you are willing to have the quilting done on a machine.  Well, maybe this is a good time to try to machine quilt the top yourselves.  Small quilts are much easier to quilt on a small sewing machine and again you can get a lot of help and advice from the quilters in your guild or from helpful staff at the local quilt stores.  You can use one of several easy ways to put the quilt sandwich layers together and you are ready for the machine quilting experience in no time. Just start small and simple with your first machine quilting project.

So you see, you do have several options to get those quilts done either using services by local quilters or by trying to machine quilt the top yourself.  Either way you will be the winner – you will end up with a completed quilt and a smaller UFO pile.

Enjoy your summer and have fun working on those UFOs.

veronika
the ACQ (self-proclaimed) UFO Queen

To read Part I - click here