Pin basting--YAY!
This is what makes me feel as though I'm really making progress: getting out the binder clips, unrolling a hunk of batting, and pouring out the safety pins.
It's too "easy" to make tops and keep them languishing as flimsies, too easy to let that stash grow and grow, piling guilt upon guilt about yet another unfinished project. So getting a flimsy to the pin-basted stage is a Big Deal in my book!I know a thing or two about languishing flimsies. I have the oldest ones hanging in plain sight, 2 and 3 deep.
When it became too cumbersome to lower and raise the hanging system (and I wasn't sure I could pile one more flimsy onto those poor, overburdened dowels), I turned to cabinet drawers (slowly being emptied of yardage as I self-shop my stash). The bottom two hold more flimsies:
A few smaller flimsies have been stuffed into my smaller projects drawers (trash bags, for instance, and a few guild challenges [I haven't been in a quilt guild since 2004] or other projects the fate of which I haven't decided):
The last flimsy I made, the crumby/log-cabinish top, managed to get sandwiched between several partially quilted projects as I shuffled things back, forth, and around in the past few days.
The guest room where I'd been stashing these between quilting sessions is being occupied at the moment, so they're in constant movement for the time being as I clear a surface for one stage of a project, then another surface for the next stage, and so on. Too many unfinished projects. Too much crap hanging around!
I visit my Project Linus group once a month and take the quilts I made that month. It's wonderful to see things leaving the house. Some big tops I've split into four, one that had lingered because I just didn't like it was split and went as a panel in several backings. I have the joy of making and none of the guilt of stacking them up AND they supply my batting. They keep trying to give me fabric too but I back away with my hands behind my back.
ReplyDeleteYou've given me the push I needed to look into organizations nearby that want bed-sized quilts. Aside from an "I Spy" top hanging on one of the dowels, all my flimsies are big enough to cover twin to queen mattresses. Thank you for the nudge in the right direction!
ReplyDeleteWe move from the tyranny of UFOs to the even more tyrannical flimsies. (Let's not talk about the pile of finished quilts in the next room, okay?) My basting technique is similar to yours with binder clips holding the sandwich in place. I agree with both of you (Caroline and Carolyn) about making about-twin-sized quilts. More manageable to us the quilters and hopefully more useful to agencies to which we donate them.
ReplyDeleteI often wonder, "At what point does this hobby go from a pleasant pastime to an albatross around one's neck?"
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