UFO: The Making of Marigolds

As Teri and I were brainstorming ideas for the blog posts, we hit upon the idea of highlighting one of our own UFOs each month. Unfinished quilt projects have been around for a long time, (see our post "Unfinished Objects of the Past"), so UFOs are not something new. There are many tips and tricks on the web to help us wade through them. The most important tip I've found is to go through your UFOs and see if you still have any interest in them whatsoever. If you don't, donate them to a thrift store; or better yet, if your quilt guild has a yard sale or donation night, take them there.  Someone else might see something they love in what you started. There are all sorts of ideas and challenges that you can find on the internet to help you finish the ones you keep. This UFO series from the Quiltmaker Magazine blog might get you started. 

In my case, I (Kara) have recently gone through my UFOs and kept the ones that I still loved and hoped to finish, and I donated the ones that held no more appeal for me. Many of the projects that I kept  were started as a result of a class I had taken.

This month's UFO is a ribbon project by Cindy Oravecz, owner of Quilter's Fancy in Cortland, Ohio. Teri and I took this class at Quilt Odyssey in Hershey, Pennsylvania. This was my first class with Cindy, and I loved every minute of it. The project is the Cornucopia Vase, from Cindy's Victorian Album Series.

If you ever get a chance to stop in to Cindy's shop, you will not be disappointed. Cindy has everything that you could need from fabric to ribbons to beads, and many other beautiful things—and you can order many of these beautiful things online through her website. (This is not a paid sponsorship, but just a review of a great quilt shop.)

This is what I have so far, minus one marigold that the dog got hold of.

This is a beautiful project that Cindy created using pleated ribbon, French ombré ribbon, Czech glass beads, and a toile background. The marigolds are created by gathering the ombré ribbon, (you can see the gathering lines drawn on the the long piece of ribbon pictured,) and then forming and stitching it on a piece of crinoline. Once the flower is formed, the crinoline is trimmed away leaving a tiny marigold.

The marked lines are gathering guides, and the piece to the right is a gathered flower before it is stitched to the crinoline.

Completed flowers and crinoline

This project is one that I will finish for a few reasons:

1.  I just have to make a few more marigolds, and then I can assemble it.

2.  It's too beautiful to give away.

3.  I worked too hard making the marigolds to give up now.

One of my successes in the garden this year has been my marigolds. These ribbon marigolds are not too far off from the real thing and will be a nice reminder of this summer, once the frost takes my real marigolds.

Life and deadlines have kept me from completing this Victorian basket, and I'd like to say that I am going to set some lofty goal of working on it a little bit each week, but I know that is not going to happen. Just pulling it out for this post inspired me to finish it, but the time to do so in the next few months is just not there. Looking at it makes me happy, and I think that will be enough to hold me over until I can finish it. Feel free to share any UFOs that you have, love, and want to finish.