About a year ago, readers of this blog will remember that I was working on a project called the Never Ending Embroidery project. It’s been a while, and I thought that for this week’s blog post, I’d give you an update as to whatever happened to it. It’s very much alive, as the photo (above) from my design wall shows.

If you’re new, my “Never Ending Embroidery Project’ (pictured above in its’ current state) is actually a pattern by Crabapple Hill Studio called Snowmen A to Z. I purchased it on my first trip to Paducah, and brought it home with me. I don’t remember exactly when the Paducah trip was, but the copyright on this pattern is 2009. So if I guess it was 2010 (ish), then this has been a UFO for about 12 years. I honestly thought it was older.

Why did I let it linger? It is a large pattern with lots of moving pieces, and the size intimidated me. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was looking for a good handwork project and I decided that this was it. I’m always up for a challenge…so I pulled it apart - keeping only the current block with me - created a project bag, and set myself on the path to stitch 20 minutes a day. Exercise should be so easy.

The photo above shows the notes I kept in the Project section of my planner. I don’t always keep notes this detailed, but this is how I know that I began stitching on November 6, 2020 and finished it (20 mins a day) on June 27, 2021. Then I neatly put everything away in the project box…and just kind of left it there.

Why? There were two reasons. I hadn’t known to test the threads for colorfastness when I started, and i am afraid of what will happen once it’s washed. I still am…but I have researched the remedies, and I have decided to park this issue and deal with it once I figure out the quilting part of it.

And I had to really consider how to quilt am embroidery quilt such as this - I’ve literally never done anything kike it. By searching through the internet, I’ve seen several finished examples of the quilt. Some I like, some I don’t…which has given me the confidence to begin to map out a plan for this one. I’ll be (big deep breath here) quilting this one at home on my Janome 8900 - it’s much longer and narrower than I had originally thought.

Why now? That’s easy - my home guild is hosting it’s quilt show this September (fingers crossed), and many of us will have pieces related to covid stitching in it. I really have no excuse not to finish it now, and roughly 4 weeks is long enough for me not to panic but close enough to motivate me.

This is the thread left over in the project. In my mind, I had expected that I would use grays and deep dark reds as the colors in the quilt. Those colors are definitely in there, but they left me completely uninspired.

I think one of the things which attracted me to this is the whimsy, the sense of fun it converys. The snowmen are playing in each panel…so I set off to look through the threads to find more inspiration - in a house which is definitely traditional at the Holidays. Blues? Oranges? you never know.

In the picture above, you can see one of the fabric pulls I found in the stash already…icy blues with a sprig of mistletoe. Perfect for border 1. Border 2 is larger, and I’m playing with ways that I can incorporate my sense of less is more into this. I’m not ready to commit yet.

And continuing my less is more theme - hopefully, the quilting. I will be quilting this myself on my long bed Janome, and I’ll be doing it in a way that highlights the embroidery, while giving a sense of continuity to the background. I’m thinking of broad, gentle loops…I see plenty of time with the sketchpad now. Twenty minutes a day should do it.

My room is currently a creative whirl, and I am happy with it.

More coming on this later… #stay tuned.

So I don’t feel too bad…what’s your oldest UFO?