I'm Getting Closer

Some of you have been following me for years now.

I’ve not been even a bit close to getting caught up with quilting my finished tops - sadly. However, I’ve started to have this strong desire to get completely caught up with personal quilt tops - as I do manage to categorize charity quilts in a different part of my brain as far as needing quilting - at least most of the time.

However, I’m now down to the closest I’ve ever been in the last I-don’t-know-how-many years to being almost completely caught up.

I’m sure as soon as I say that, I will find a top or two stashed somewhere. And that’s fine. They’ve been wherever they are for a while - that’s for sure. And if I find I don’t like them enough to count them as my own personal ones, I will put them in the charity quilt pile and that is fine with me too.

Note - this does not mean you have seen all the quilts I have made or even all the tops. Some have never been featured anywhere, and I still need to write some patterns. All of this feeling so far behind has partly been because It seems like we’ve been traveling so much - and I’ve not have the focus to get them done. Also…I’ll admit…I enjoy piecing so much I’ve just not done it!

Anyway, these are the finished tops I have left to quilt as of this blog post being live. Obviously I have a lot of tops that are being worked on or in blocks stage.

I’m going to show these tops beside the name so you can see what I’ve got ahead of me.

Upcycled Greens - hearts or four leaf clover nr. 9 - need to make a backing for it

Upcycled Greens - burgundy and green/cream - nr. 14 - need to create a backing for it

Upcycled Greens - nr. 31 - need to create a backing for this one

Upcycled Greens - green/pink - nr. 36

Bear Paws - upcycled series - need to make a backing from upcycleds

Granny Square with Japanese prints - I’m working on a backing for this one

I have one of the Upcycled Greens I need to completely take the quilting out and start over. I love the top too much to leave it - but it’s been a daunting idea. I may have to skin it from the back and lose the backing. - that is nr 29. I didn’t quilt it right and I worked in all that extra - but completely too much so that one side is about 5” shorter than the other!!! I’ve learned a lot about the long arm since then - and know how to avoid it that situation!

If I were to say that I am scared about how to quilt some of these, I would not be lying. However, over time, at least with the Upcycleds, I am less afraid of “messing it up” than I used to be. I just have to prepare the backings - because I am also making them out of upcycleds, so it is a bit of a job to do so.

I also have a couple of the most recently finished tops - my son and DIL’s Fat Quarter Flirt top and my Applelicious top - but I am planning on doing both of those on the Janome unless I change my mind. I still want to finish them, of course, but they do fall in a different category in my mind. :) Silly, I know. But I am a bit more stressed when quilting on the long arm - I have absolutely no confidence when using it. And that is stupid after all the quilts I’ve actually quilted on it.

When I finish all of these, I will go rattling around in some drawers that it seems like I may have some tops in that I can find and make some final decisions whether or not I want to keep it/them for myself as I mentioned or measure them and put them in with the charity tops. I’m not sure what I’ve got that is hidden. The ones shown above are the ones I really like and have done in the last few years. But I do know that I have one old bargello that I never quilted because one fabric is wrong and I didn’t want to fix it. Now that I’m much more experienced, I know that getting that one block fixed would take less time than the time I’ve spent thinking about how bad it looks (I think it is only one actual square - but maybe it is three). I used to think it was nice but possibly now I wouldn’t be so happy with the whole thing anyway - I’ll see when I get to that drawer and take a look.

Anyway, this is getting down to the final few and I’m getting excited about that.

Once I get all the Upcycled Greens finished completely I want to get a final picture of them together and then I can start giving them away. Up until now I’ve not wanted to do that as I wanted to have all 36 in one place for that picture. So it’s well past time.

And now you know. Maybe you don’t care at all. Maybe you find this interesting. It’s more or less a checkup for me and I thought I’d share it with you!

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this.

Becky Petersen1 Comment