OK, let’s hear about your ‘best’ UFO - (unfinished object).

A patchwork blanket. I started it when I was a teenager and didn't finish it. Then I resurrected it when I was pregnant and though I'd make a smaller one for my baby's bed. Easy to finish. Nope. So, it stayed in a bag and followed me around through my many moves. THEN 30 (yes, really) years later, I found it and thought I'd turn it into a blanket for my GRANDCHILD'S bed.

But then I looked at it again, was honest with myself, I was never going to finish it, and threw it away. A 35 year unfinished project.

Just thinking about those lovely part-finished projects getting thrown away. My aunt gave me an unfinished summer dress when she’d got tangled up with the pleats. By then she knew she wouldn’t finish it, or wear it, but I really liked it when I’d completed it and wore it all summer. Maybe charity shops could have a section for ufos so that other people could pick fabric or wool up cheaply, or finish a project? My own ufo is a piece of deep pink silk with a blouse pattern bought at least 30 years ago and still not started! Probably not enough fabric now.

BlueBell - like you, I have an unfinished project that’s not craft related. Back in 2011 when we were fitting our boat out to turn it from an empty steel tube into a floating country cottage, one of my jobs was to paint the bedroom. Still not done. Still on the To Do list ?

I started a Nat****y sampler in 1990, just after my daughter was born. Finally completed it in 2005.

Did finish a crochet octopus in lockdown, which I had started in 2014.

I’ve got a large box of fabric I’m going to make into dresses and skirts. This post has decided that I better give them to a charity shop. Off to clear out the box now.

I have an unfinished apron which I have tacked together made from a vintage piece of fabric.
I made one mask and the elastic kept getting tangled up in my glasses, so I didn't make any more.
I started a sketchbook during lockdown which needs completing.
However when we have cold weather and endless rain, I think that these will get done, at the moment my time is spent out in the garden!

Jaxjacky

Nativity?

Noel, I suspect...

I was searching through my ever growing pile of dress fabrics for material to make my ten year old GD a dress. Lurking within the pile was a half made dress for my D that I’d begun in 1976 and never got round to putting the binding on. Is this a record? I’m actually the world’s worst at starting projects and not finishing .

I did lose interest in the sewing but I do everything by hand and find the cotton rubbish but now can't afford to do anything so I will probably give up.

I honestly have too many to mention. A number of unfinished garments are still in my ‘ stash ‘ , but others have been dismantled to start something else. I said when I retired that I’d need to live a long time to use up all my yarn, and finish projects. That was thirteen years ago. Two weeks ago, I found a frame with a cross stitch started - a picture of a street in Charleston, S Carolina, which I bought on holiday there about twenty five years ago. I was full of enthusiasm re picking it up again, only to discover that the threads are missing. We moved house five years ago, and I don’t recall seeing them at any time. So disappointing! I need more self discipline! Many years ago, I had a number of Phildar pattern books, which my children loved trawling through. I knitted my daughters various garments, but my son, who has learning disabilities, always wanted a particular jumper with a B on it. He never got it, and forty years later, he still reminds me! We’ll, I’ve still got the book, so, I’m intending, just for fun, to make it for his fiftieth birthday. He’ll love it, and will wear it. I’ve got a couple of years, but really should start now!!

Oh so many! First their was the Millennium tapestry that took me 20 years to complete. The log cabin patchwork quilt has been, and still is, on going for 8 years and nowhere near completion. Then there's the jumper I began during lockdown #1 and needs sewing together and the neck finishing. The cross stitch sampler I began for when DIL was pregnant with GD remains unfinished. GD is now 9 and the sampler is nowhere near finished. I've just begun a knitted squares blanket. I've got 5 squares so far.

I’m determined not to get despondent about my stashbuster rainbow blanket, Theoddbird - was hoping for Christmas but as long as it’s finished sometime during the winter…

I’m 17 inches in to the first of 3 x 24 inch sections, so my heart does sink a little now and then, but plod on, half a dozen rows or more every night, nice mindless knitting in front of the telly.
Any guests might raise eyebrows at 8+ balls of yarn lined up across the back of the sofa - I have to have a ‘colours that go’ sequence all ready.

I'll take your lead Theoddbird as I have a box euphemistically called Projects.
Perhaps I'll go and have a rummage........

One should never set a time on how long something is going to take to make. If not finished in a set time you naturally get despondent. My attitude is that things will be finished when they are finished....

I started making a coronavirus patchwork in March 2020. Small hexagons of fabric and hand stitched. I was also doing a lot of knitting. Long story short - my arthritic hands got worse so hand sewing wasn’t possible. When the weather cools my hands improve so I can get back to it.

Should have added, Blinko, I had to do most of dd1’s blasted cookery apron - she loathed needlework, still does.
It was exactly the same thing I’d had to make at school about 30 years previously!

Since my sewing skills had improved vastly during those 30 years, I was very miffed to end up with, ‘C+. Neatness and accuracy are 2 skills which you must practiCe.’

How very dare she? But at least it gave my inner pedant a good laugh.

See my pic on the previous page, Blinko.

What are knitted nativities???

It took me seven years to finish the school apron...I don't recall whether it actually got finished. As a forces child, I attended about five secondary schools over time, so I carted it from school to school till at last I was able to opt out of needlework altogether. Give me French or German any day. Or even Geography.

I started making a patchwork quilt for my daughter, eventually thought it would be a great eighteenth birthday present …….then twenty first…….then wedding…….then the cat was sick on it so I threw the bloody thing away ( with relief!)

Could I just say about these knitted nativities.
Everybody .............................................no, I can't do it.

Love the phrase BUO Witzend - I think by the time some of these items get finished I may have grown a 'basic beard' myself.

I finished one 'ufo' during the first lockdown but I've run out of steam. It's a 'crazy' patchwork quilt and weighs a ton. I'd wanted to back it with a hexagon quilt but was persuaded to make two separate items instead. Now I'm left with the hexagon effort which I'm totally bored with. It's scrunched up in a large bag. ignored and unloved.

I've also a smaller quilt which hangs over the bannister. It's got a pink centre and I loved it when I began it but now it looks so dowdy and old-fashioned. There's a small cushion on top of this. One day I shall finish them.

Isn't it often the case though, that the next item on your list is more exciting than 'that old thing' so it gets left?

Oh, I've just checked and it's A Young Girl Reading. Though to be fair she's knocking on a bit now.

I started a big and ambitious tapestry in 1975 - Fragonard's Reading Lady - and I'm delighted to say I finished it in 2018. It's now languishing in the cellar while I think of something to do with the flipping thing.

Does my family tree count as Arts and Crafts? That's been ongoing since 1980, but I have added a lot of branches since Lockdown 1.