Finishing UFO's

If you aren't a quilter, a UFO is an unfinished object. Most quilters seem to be starters vs. finishers. I haven't quited figured out why I don't do a better job of finishing my quilts, although I do finish quite a few. I love the planning stage - deciding on a pattern/design, then I love choosing the fabrics, whether I'm buying new fabrics or pulling from the stash. I love making the first few blocks to see how it all goes together, but then I lose interest. It can get pretty boring to keep making the same blocks over and over. When we moved to KY in 1997, I began going to estate sales and auctions. I realized that finished quilts, almost no matter how badly they were constructed or how worn, would sell and quite often, sell for way more than I thought they were worth. Half finished tops or even neat little bags with all the cut pieces organized and waiting to be constructed, wouldn't sell at all. I began to think . . when I'm gone, do I want my half finished tops or my Wal-Mart bags stuffed full of cut pieces and strips to be sold for $1 or $2? I've labored over choosing the correct fabric for the designs, and no one can make my quilts like I can. That's when I began to make a concentrated effort to finish my UFO's. Before beginning this post, I would have considered that I was doing an excellent job of finishing projects. After taking inventory, I think I might be failing miserably at finishing projects. This picture shows 25 tops that are finished and just waiting to be quilted. 25 is a lot of tops to be quilted! Think what that number would be if I didn't have my own longarm! On second thought . . don't think about that number! There are probably just as many that need the binding finished and I refuse to think about how many tops are started and not nearly to the point of waiting to be quilted. I will do better! I will make an effort to finish more tops before starting others. As to the log cabin . . NO! Not the log cabin that we're going to look at in 6 hours (but who's counting?), I'm about halfway finished with the quilting on the red log cabin star. I'm thinking . . the last two quilts I have done have been log cabin related - the black quilt has those little cabins in the border and now this red one has log cabins that make up the center. I so rarely make anything with the log cabin block. Maybe that's a sign??