Nov 12, 20204 min read

Hello, Is it me You're Looking For? (#UFOVEMBER 2020)

Updated: Nov 15, 2021

Hello friends and thanks so much for stopping by to read about my UFOVEMBER experience! Before I get started I want to thank Bobbie Gentili over at The Geeky Bobbin for inviting me to participate and organizing this event. I am a fanatical quilter and an occasional blogger so I appreciate the impetus of a blog hop so I can slow down and tell some stories about quilting.

I have been quilting since 2015 but dreaming of being a quilter since I was a little girl watching my Grandma make quilts. She was such a creative and dynamic lady! Some of my favorite memories of her, besides watching her make quilts, are of her dancing around her kitchen table to Lionel Richie cassette tapes. She would snap her fingers and shake her groove thing and have so much fun! Grandma went to several Lionel Richie concerts and I remember her saying that her favorite show was when, right at the beginning when the lights were still dark, Lionel sang out Hello, is it me you're looking for?

And the crowd went wild!

Fast forward several years and I'm now able to make quilts of my own! So many quilts, in fact, that I have quite a trunkload of finished quilts...and quite a long list of UFO's (UnFinished Objects). I thought carefully about which UFO to choose for UFOVEMBER 2020. I knew instantly that I needed to choose the UFO far off in the dark, figuratively calling out Hello, is it me you're looking for?

Let me tell you a bit about this project before I resume working on it. I purchased the fabric on a trip to Missouri Star Quilt Company...Quilttown, USA...Disneyland for Quilters. My kids and I traveled from our (then) hometown of Missoula, Montana to my childhood hometown of Jacksonville, Illinois. We made many stops along the way and had a lovely time!

While shopping my way though Quilttown, USA, I couldn't decide between the warm and cool pallette of Kaffe Fasset fabrics so I bought both. At the time, I'd only pieced squares and rectangles...never triangles. I remember telling my dear friend Meg that I wanted to learn to work with fabric triangles. I also wanted a "summertime" quilt for our queen-sized bed.

Perhaps I should have started with something smaller, haha!

So I set out on a rudimentary sketch of one quadrant of summertime quilt made entirely of half-square triangles (HST's). I used a multi-HST method so each unit needed to be trimmed. Once everything was trimmed I sewed together two quadrants of the quilt...the bottom half...quadrants 3 and 4 if you remember the days of mathematic graphs.

Then I was sick and tired of sewing HST units together so I put everything into its box and moved on.

Fast forward to 2019 when I pulled it all out and realized that I was short some of the pink and green solids as well as the green Kaffe Fassett floral. I scoured the internet for more fabrics (huge thanks to fabric shops that keep a record of past orders for girls like me who box up UFO's for too long). When they were delivered I started sewing again. After sewing several rows together I realized there were many mistakes so I used ALL the four-letter words, boxed up the mess, flipped it the bird, and moved on to other things.

Well, here we are, November 2020, and its time to take inventory of what's in the box:

The contents include:

One rudimentary sketch (with some clearly paltry fabric calculations)
Half a quilt top
Several incorrectly-sewn rows
10,471 HST's left to sew
Two pieces of fabric for a backing (because I forgot about buying the first one)

So I grabbed a cup of coffee and the seam ripper and returned the incorrect rows to their component parts.

I then started sewing HST's together. I realized that I didn't really have all the skills I needed when I started this quilt. Particularly, the skill to layout a quilt and pick it up to sew it together without screwing everything up. Yes, I know there are so many helpful videos out there but I just needed time and experience to come up with what works for me. Now that I have that ability dialed in, sewing this quilt together was a breeze.

Until I realized that I'm short 6 squares of cloud fabric.

&$#%

Here is where I am on November 6:

I have the bottom half, quadrant 2, and all but six pieces of quadrant 1 complete.

Back to the internet for me!

I found the clouds I needed from Over The Rainbow Fabrics in Camano Island, WA. I also found a fun iguana print that I couldn't resist as well as a gorgeous Frida Kahlo panel...for another day!

New fabric was delivered on November 10.

Back to sewing on November 11.

And, here is my completed quilt top, just in time for my #UFOVEMBER post on November 12th:

I am so pleased with how it turned out! I asked my friend Jill Therriault of Stitching In Heels (who will be joining us on the UFOVEMBER blog hop later this month) to quilt it for me. She does the most beautiful hand-guided longarm feather work! We are making a trade: I'll do a modern, computerized quilt design on one of her quilts and she will feather my Summertime quilt for me. It's a win-win!

Thanks again to Bobbie for organizing such a fun blog hop! I love seeing everyone's projects being resurrected, re-imagined, resumed, and/or re-homed! I'm thrilled to be able to cross another UFO off my list.

Here is the list of all the folks who are participating in UFOVEMBER 2020. Please click through and show them some love!

Name, Brand, Blog URL

Bobbie Gentili, The Geeky Bobbin, http://geekybobbin.com

Becca Fenstermaker, Pretty Piney Quilts, https://prettypiney.com/blog

Joanne Kerton, Canuck Quilter Designs, https://canuckquilter.com

Sue Griffiths, Duck Creek Mountain Quilting, https://www.duckcreekmountainquilting.com

Ashli Montgomery, Storytelling Tees, http://www.meandcoach.com

Anne Boundy, Said With Love, https://saidwithlove.com.au

Sarah Ruiz, Sarah Ruiz Quilts, http://sarahruiz.com

Teresa Weaver, Your Sewing Friend, https://yoursewingfriend.com/blogs/sewing-friend-news

Karen Brown, Just Get It Done Quilts, https://www.justgetitdonequilts.com/blog

Bobbi Bridgeman, Snowy Days Quilting, https://snowydaysquilting.com