UFO Sunday – Step away from the insanity

It’s UFO Sunday time! What UFOs are you busting through today?

free motion quilting | Leah Day

I took some time this week to finally piece together this little 8-bit self portrait. Each piece finished at 1/2 inch (Pinmoor on the surface for reference). Yes, this was insane.

When I cut it out I was thinking “I’ll whip through this in no time!” and in reality, not Leah’s-fairy-tail-maximum-efficient-universe, I cut it out and left it on my sewing table for 3 weeks in tiny, horribly venerable pieces.

So getting it pieced felt good because I can finally throw junk back on that table without fear of 1 inch pieces blowing all around the room and having to scramble to put them all back in place properly.

I plan to design two more portraits for James and Josh and put the three of us together into some sort of quilt with our favorite 8 or 16 bit video game characters like Super Mario Brothers, Earthbound, and Donkey Kong.

As for the rest of it, yes, it’s now a UFO. I’m feeling very overwhelmed at the moment and the idea of piecing just isn’t appealing when I have a literal mountain of quilts to quilt. This UFO will have to wait for now and I can use the wonderful excuse of letting it “gestate” as I plan out the rest of the design in the back of my head!

So that’s what I’ve finished this week! What are you working on? Any UFOs you’ve busted completely


Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

8 Responses

  1. Kathleen says:

    Leah, if you do it again, you might try cutting the squares and then put them on a gridded iron-on interfacing. Then you iron everything down. Next, fold the entire row down on the next row and stitch the entire row. Continue for all rows. Then clip and turn it the other way, folding a column on the next column. Easier and faster!

  2. k. says:

    I have a 30X30 Tree I did with the method Kathleen describes and it is MUCH easier that way. 😉 I recommend the technique for mosaic style art quilting. k.

    http://boxpleat.blogspot.com/2010/02/yea-nourish-tree-as-it-beginneth-to.html

  3. Beebs says:

    Agree with Kathleen. Scanned a painting my granddaughterhad made when she was little into a 'Quilted Photography' program, then cut tiny pieces of fabric putting them together as Kathleen did. SO EASY!!!

  4. LynCC says:

    That's going to be a really fun family quilt!

  5. Great idea Leah,my quilt is only for a raining day work, good week.
    Silvia

    http://tearpiaocupacional.blogspot.com.br/

  6. I am working on a rainbow block UFO and gurning it into a baby quilt. It is looking beautiful and it is a great way to practice Stitch in the ditch with a FMQ foot. I also finally figured out all the broken needles while FMQ and I am so excited.

  7. Jessim says:

    I am working on a quilt using the method Kathleen described. I couldn't find any pre-made interfacing grids, so I drew my own.

    I am now developing red lines on my sewing machine, as there are A LOT of rows of them (15 yards of interfacing…1.5" grids) I am going to put some painter's tape down to prevent any more sharpie build up.

    Oddly, when I washed the sample, none of it got onto the fabric. http://skittl1321.blogspot.com/2012/12/new-project-mario-quilt.html

  8. LAQuilts says:

    Very cute. My UFO is unpacking and getting the house set up so I can start sewing again.

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