Friday, November 12, 2010

My big UFO project

This is my big UFO that has been hanging around since 2000. The first year  I was in the Friendship Group I saw this quilt at a local quilt shop. It was part of a trunk show and I wish I could tell you who the designer is but I can't find the pattern.











 I asked the shop owner if she thought I could ask the group to make this block for me when my month to present a block came up. (I knew I would never make all these blocks myself)
 She said "sure".  I  am surprised that they are still my friends. It is a 12 inch block  and I asked for 2 blocks, that is the limit for a 12 inch block. I asked for as many different  fabrics as possible in each block. I said would be happy to have any extra Hourglass blocks or small squares for the connector corners. This was  pretty labor intensive and I would not have asked for it  had I been in the group longer and realized the time it took to pick out the fabrics and make the block. They are all busy people but everyone came through and no one quit.
The finished top was 83 inches square and that is too  big for me to machine quilt so I started hand quilting. I have 15 of the wheel or fortune blocks done with the surrounding 3 inch sashing and the secondary pattern where the sashings come together with the 4 patch cornerstones.

There are 25 Wheel of Fortune Blocks and 20 secondary blocks. I am too far along to quit and not far enough to feel encouraged that the end is in sight. I remember that I always think I am almost done when I get to the border but the border always takes as long if not longer than the body of the quilt.
I am quilting in the ditch along most of the straight lines with concentric circles in the center of the WOF blocks and 3 overlapping circles in the rectangles in the center of the sashing. I realized a couple of years ago that it is like sewing every single seam a  second time and then some.
Oh well.......................................................

I started out quilting in my Q-Snap PVC pipe frame but that is not very accessible right now having been put in our locker with a bunch of things blocking it. I will get it out  when we take our Christmas things out next month. In the meantime I have set up my oval  floor frame which is smaller but it is working well; the quilt is all  over the floor at this point but that is not a big problem.

I told my daughter in law and son that they could have this quilt when it is done so I really would like to be able to give it to them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you recall many of us have offered to come and help you finish the handquilting and some of us are actualy pretty good at it.
Take care,K