Major UFO

For my non-quilty friends, UFO means UnFinished Object.


Way back in August, Christina at A Few Scraps announced that she was going to have a quilt-along.  And not just any quilt-along.  A free motion quilting quilt-along.  It was perfect!  Exactly what I needed since I was just figuring out this whole quilt-on-a-regular-sewing-machine thing.  So I jumped on board (except, I never actually signed up - I guess I am more of a stow-away...).
The plan was to make an ugly quilt top using only fabric from our stash.  NO buying new fabric for this one!  So I put together this quilt top:

Looking back, I really should have just used solids for the whole thing.  I LOVE this blue dots/squares fabric, but it is way too busy and now I can't see the quilting designs over it.

I should have used the blue for something else.  I guess I was worried I would run out of solid.  Well, I still have QUITE a bit of it left...

I didn't have enough fabric for the back, but I DID have a ton of totally randomly shaped pieces of heavy duty green "upholstery" fabric that I figured I would never ever use otherwise.  So I pieced them all together for a very heavy quilt back.  (Don't judge too harshly...  It's not like I was planning on giving this quilt away to someone.)

And here's the best part.  At the time, I also didn't have enough batting but I DID have a ton of left over felt from a time when I made a horrible miscalculation and bought about 4 times what I needed.  So... don't tell anyone... but I used felt (also pieced together) instead of regular batting.  This turned out to be one funky, heavy, stiff quilt.  That's for sure.

Here is the final product:

What?  You can't see any of the quilting?  I KNOW!  So here is a picture of the back:

I have officially decided that I am NEVER going to give this quilt away.  I would be too embarrassed.  Instead, I am going to keep it for my own reference.  There are a LOT of flaws - TONS of places where my thread tension was bad, not to mention the fact that I ran out of blue and green thread (which is really hard to see on a green back anyway) and ended up using a whole lot of yellow and red - with no particular rhyme or reason.  And for future reference - I should NEVER use two different colors for the top thread and bobbin thread.

The quilt-along consisted of lots of different types of quilting and it was really interesting to see what worked for me and what didn't.  There were a few surprises - some of the designs I hated seeing on paper turned out great on the quilt, others turned out much worse than I expected.  I am definitely not good at anything that echoes the shape of something, and meandering is still the easiest - although there were a lot of line designs that I think I could use.

With that said, here are a few close ups of designs that I am now able to quilt:

Feathers

Pebbles (these are my good ones)

Sprirals and more Spirals

I really liked this flower and sun, but the thread tension was REALLY bad and I REALLY didn't want to undo all of it.  Another reason I can't give this one away.

Meandering

Square meandering

Scallops.  I didn't like these as much as I thought I would.

Lines.  If you look really closely, you can see the (upside down) treble clefs and stars

Loops

And words...

Since these are backwards, I thought I would show you one of them front the front.  Look closely!

And there you have it!  Now I can start a NEW project.  Yay!