Afraid of UFO's?

Mamie believes in UFO's.  She is absolutely positive they are real.  That is because she has personally witnessed them, and they can be scary.  We are talking about Un-Finished Objects.  Oh my!  We have many-we don't joke that we live in the half-way house for nothing!  We have minds like a pinball machine-here, there, everywhere.  We do have good intentions but the road to...well whatever, we have a few (cough, cough) UFO's at our house.  Quilts for example.

Mamie has always LOVED quilts.  Actually, she likes most things that hint of the lives of women of the past.  Baby shoes, old crazed mixing bowls, photos with the searching eyes of hearts just trying to make it through each day-so many stories that touch Mamie's heart.  Quilts are the patchwork of everyday life- especially quilts made with scraps of everyday life.  Shirts that daddy wore out working hard in the fields, but still some good pieces that could be used.  The floral bags from the flour and grain sacks that were finished up.  The scraps from dresses for mama and her little girls.  And every stitch that mama took up on her needle- what was on her mind at that moment?  Was she content and happy, or trying to keep her mind on making a blanket for the winter ahead, trying not to think about the things weighing on her that day?  Blood spots spattered here and there, from the needle accidentally pricking her finger one too many times...

When first married, Mamie and Poppy were so poor, (and have been again a few times since) and Mamie could not afford those beautiful quilts she would see in  Country Living magazine, or the antique stores they would visit now and again.  So, she checked out books from the library about quilting, and jumped in and started trying to sew her own.  Her first was quite an experience!  It was a fan quilt, and the top went pretty well with the help of Poppy doing the math and helping chart the pattern.  But she chose a thick batting, and that was so hard to hand-quilt!  She learned along the way to choose the batting according to the purpose of the quilt she was making.

{This picture is circa 1985- just back from the library and writing down recipes~my little girl next to me-the same little girl that is expecting our first grandbaby, under the infamous first fan quilt!}  Notice the book, "Living the Country Life" next to Mamie?

Anyway, let us not write a novel here- Mamie is wanting to make another quilt, and when she got out her supplies, digging out the boxes in the attic, she realized how many UFO's she has.  So she decided to air them on the clothesline, and perhaps give herself some incentive to finish up those projects so she can move on to others, and those sad, put-aside objects can finally become the treasures they were meant to be...

This is a Dresden Plate quilt that Mamie made many years ago, but was hesitant to make and apply the binding, since it has so many scallops.  And so it sat sadly in a tupperware box in the attic for years.  And years.  And guess what?  She is still scared of that stinking binding!

But every one of those stitches you see on this quilt were stitched on the needle by Mamie's own fingers...

 This little fan quilt is really embarrassing...it is a quilt for a dear friend started, what --about 8 years ago for dear friend's 30th anniversary.  Oh criminey!  Maybe she will be happy to get it for her 40th?  It will be a true vintage by then-:-)!  Mamie was trying her hand at machine meandering quilting.

This top is an album pattern.  Poppy fell in love with it after Mamie finished it.  He wants this one for his own.  
But it has been finished as a top for years- when will Mamie quilt it??  The colors here do not do it justice- it has lovely fall hues and cute crows scattered around on it.  Mamie wants to do this one by hand.  That means it will be sitting around taking up space on the couch, around the bed, in the truck, etc. etc. until done.  But it will be so lovely when finished- Mamie even has the fabric for the backing and the binding, she just needs to sandwich them together...okay, okay- SOON!

The rest are blocks put together when Mamie was young and cute.  (She didn't think that then but looking back..) Now the word "cute" is kind of a sore spot in her vocabulary.  (hehe).  Who knows if these blocks will ever be finished as they were made with fabric that was not of very good quality, as there was not a very good choice of places to buy fabric back then.

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