New "online sewing challenge" proposal

After reading about Kate pulling a 12yr. old incomplete coat project out of a closet it reminded me of the many incomplete things I have stored away as well. I even have the partially made dress I started so that I could wear it on an exciting date with a new young man

21yrs, ago. We have now been married 20 yrs. and the dress never got done. I propose we all pick up an old project we started at one time and complete it within the next 6 months. I can post pictures on a webpage to show our success and the satisfaction of "closure." If it is something we wouldn't wear anymore or the wrong size now....we can always donate it. Course I am not sure if anyone needs an orange linnen box pleated skirt (another incomplete from my basement)....but hey, it might be fun! Joy in Michigan

But, what if we don't have a project that is 21 years old?? I have a quilt that I started 5 years ago. FInally got top and back finished (reversible, both sides have different design). It needs to be sized and squared and everything put together....would that count???

Larisa

Joy Hardie wrote:

Sounds like it will be fun! I have a rose-red quiana knit dress that I can probably wear now, that I lost a few pounds. I couldn't wear a few years ago, when we first moved in this house and I put it away again. Emily

Ditto, here. I have a quilt that I cut out in 1986. Through many moves, I still have all of the pieces. (At least last time I checked...) Would that count?

grin

Cappy Edgewater, MD

Sounds like a 'scrappy' quilt would be the way to go. Check that all the fabric is 100% cotton, and washed, and just sew it up. I'd make it into 12" scrap blocks and then sash them together with a plain colour. You might like to make a blue block, a red block... and so on.

Here's a good place to find blocks and ideas:

I'd also advise cotton batting.

A quilt UFO would be an excellent project! :)

Oh, I think so! :D

Hm... Old enough to be 'vintage' yet? I have a couple of those...

I have saved scraps from all the little dresses and rompers and so forth that were made for my now-8-year-old-granddaughter.

I have always planned on making a simple quilt for her from them....if that counts??

As always, I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to go about this from those who quilt............

Well, phooey! I just (well, last Novemer) finished a project that might qualify. It was the first quilt I ever started, one of those where you have to enlarge a grid to get your pattern, from a 1974 McCall's quilting magazine. The fabric, backing and all, cost $22.24--I still have the receipt--and I began it in 1975 and kind of 'finished' it in

1980. I remember quilting on it that year during the Winter Olympics, the one in which the USA hockey team beat the Russians. Since then it's been used quite a bit, for a while at another house as a draft stopper in front of french doors, and of course it's been slept under sometimes.

But it really needed more quilting to hold the batting securely enough for it to be washed. The problem was that at the time, I didn't know enough about what I was doing to cut away any of the underneath layers. So quilting the flowers meant going through as many as 5 layers of fabric...a lot of slow stab stitching.

Now, after 30 years, it's done:

'Course, none of my girls like it very much so I don't know what the future holds for the poor thing.Doreen in Alabama

It would be more than welcome to come live with me! I never turn away a quilt that needs love!

Dannielle

Does this mean that I have to finish that corded corset I started in 2002?

------------------------------------------------------ Wendy Z Chicago, IL (Moo) Wench Wear Costumes

#525 AIM=wendylady525"Though she be but little, she is fierce""It's the little ones you have to watch out for...""I'm not short - I'm concentrated"--------------------------------------------------------

I'd kind of like to keep it in the family. Are you available for adoption? :)

Doreen in Alabama

Of course! Don't you think....anything goes!! Hmmm....and my son found a box and the boys asked if they could do something with the fabric....who knows what....and my husband thoughtfully replied..."No, that's strips of fabric for your mothers'

18yr old Braided Rug project." It's right next to the counted cross stitch "Teddy Bear Allphabet" that has 2 letters left to go...and my youngest child is 12!! I have sooo many options, cut out quilts etc. aside from the craft options. I bet we ALL have some odd thing put away that we never got around to completing. (At least I hope I am not the only one with this "illness." Joy

I don't remember the age, when was quiana very popular? Mid-70s, maybe? And last night, I found a gray almost completed gray of the same fabric. I know why I put those projects away; because the SM I had then did not have a stretch stitch and it was very difficult to sew, so I put them in a box and thought, "out of sight, out of mind" therefore 30+ years that's where they've been. Emily

Oh boy, I had better go see if my all Black evening patchwork and quilted short sleeved jacked is sufficiently "pressed" from being at the bottom of the stack. It's been there since 1998, do you think it's ready to be finished yet? ( asking innocently )

Claire in Montréal, France.

Hm... Nah... needs another coupla years!