Marian's UFO's

Have you ever tried to work on a UFO (Un-Finished Objects) that someone else has started?  It's tough enough trying to finish up my own unfinished projects but to take something that someone else has started and try to finish it is really a challenge.  It's not something I've done much of and I can tell you after this experience I won't be doing any more any time soon! 

A while ago my sister and several of the girls in her Monday quilt group lost one of their regular members.  When Marian's family got around to cleaning out her house they had no idea what to do with all her crafting/sewing stuff.  I had never been to Marian's craft room but had heard stories of how lovely it was and how much stuff was in it.  She was involved in quilting, knitting, rubber stamping, and other crafts/hobbies.  So much so that her husband had a craft room built to hold all her stuff.  I often heard the girls talking about going to Marian's to enjoy group sewing or other projects.

After the family had taken the items they were interested in, Marion's husband invited the "Monday night group" to come over to the house and help themselves to whatever they wanted.  Each of the girls had received so much stuff that I understand it took them several visits to clean the whole room out.  While I didn't participate in the clean up I was lucky enough to receive several kits and a selection of fabrics from the stuff my sister Dutchy had received.  In fact it was a whole storage tub full of stuff!

 

The fabrics are beautiful!  And there were lots of kits of all different types and sizes of projects.  I selected several of the smaller table runners and place mats thinking they would work up quickly.  I hadn't touched anything in the that tub until last winter and what a surprise!

Occasionally one of the girls in my Friday group will mention that they had picked up one of Marion's projects to finish.  The comments were always the same;  poor Marian, she must have used some of the fabric from the kit on another project; or isn't this one of the patterns we did in class, it seems to be missing some pieces; or I tried to finish this project but the pieces are cut wrong. 

You see, Marian was in it for the fun not the finesse!  She had enough money to buy whatever she wanted, and her husband indulged her, so she often had two or three (or more!) of the same kit or piece of fabric.  She's buy several yards of fabric at the quilt shop then come in the following week and buy more of the same!  We all chuckled because we all wish we could do that!

So when I finally got around to tackling some of those UFOs from Marian I saw for myself that all the comments from the girls were true.  The first project was the Pumpkin Patch table runner - it was missing some of the beige background fabric so I substituted with one from my stash.

Next I tried the Bunny table runner.  This one wasn't missing anything.  In fact it had enough fabric to make SIX table runners!  LOL  I guess she was planning on giving these away.  She had completed four of the bunny faces and cut some of the other pieces but not all of them.  I decided to finish just two of them and put the rest of the fabric in my stash for another project.

And lastly I tackled the Christmas place mats. These were a puzzle.  She had the triangles cut but I'm not sure what pattern she was following!  And since they were cut on the bias, well, lets just say they were a bit "wonky"!  Again I substituted the red for some fabric I had in my stash and I think they came out pretty good.

I spent about two weekends working on these projects and when all was said and done I enjoyed the challenge and spent some time fondly remembering a quilting friend!  I have to admit I only completed the piecing on the 3 table runners and 2 place mats.  I decided that the next steps, quilting and binding, would have to be done by someone else so I returned them to my sister.  I'm not sure if she's done anything with them but now she can have some fun and fond memories of Marian too.