Finish it up Friday: the one where I get to contribute!

Several of the blogs I read link up to a feature called "Finish it Up Friday" where the point is to get rid of one of your UFO's (unfinished objects). I have a lot of UFO's. I have a lot of projects that are 95% done and have been that way for a long time. I once had that noted on a performance review at work; I guess it's a habit of mine. (I try not to let it happen at the office anymore!)

But THIS week, I took one of those UFO's and I finished it! So this is my week to gloat a little. The project is a quilt I started more than two years ago. I started seeing quilts made from vintage sheets all over the blogosphere and I loved the mix of patterns so much that I started collecting some sheets of my own. I stockpiled maybe a third of what I needed and then lost interest in the whole thing. 

This winter, two things happened that gave me the kick in the pants I needed to finish it. Number one, I finished my other little sampler quilt, and that got me back into sewing in general. It is definitely a seasonal pastime for me and also something that I enjoy more the more I do it. (I need to dust off the cobwebs and refine my rusty skills a little before I can comfortably commit to sewing with my good fabric!) The other thing was that Mallory moved into a larger bed and the quilt I sewed for her a few years ago is only twin-sized. She needed something bigger, she needed it before summer, and she needed something that would match her new pale pink walls. Rather than buy her something new I decided to finish up what I had already started.

I went through my stash of vintage sheets and decided to focus on a mix of predominantly pink, blue and purple patterns. (I set a few aside that trended more to yellow or orange.) I tried to collect roughly half pink/warm tones and half blue/cool tones. My local thrift stores only went so far (and a lot of the sheets they carried were too grungy for me to consider; I was really looking more for new old stock), so I wound up ordering some fat quarters from a couple of Etsy sellers to finish my stockpile.

I decided to make the quilt out of simple squares to let the patterns on the sheets take center stage. The finished size is 80"x80". In hindsight, I could have made it one row longer, but at the time I started it I was not even sure I could quilt something so big on my little machine without ruining it. The whole thing was a bit of an experiment. I am happy to report it was not as difficult as I thought and now I have the confidence to make more.

It is backed simply, with one large flat sheet, and the fabric I needed to bind it finally came in the mail last week so I stayed up late Friday night watching a movie and finishing the binding. Saturday morning I threw it in the wash and although I wasn't sure that the cotton/poly blend fabrics would lend themselves well to a nice crinkly quilt, the cotton batting I used did shrink up nicely and gave it the look I wanted. Yay!

I love it, Mallory seems to like it, and Finnegan is not complaining, either. I may get Mallory some solid pillowcases to go with it and I think she is now set for summer bedding. Hooray! And now, I'm ready to put the sewing machine away for a few months, and start focusing more on some outside projects.