16 Ideas for Getting Your Flimsies (quilt tops) DONE

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I don’t know if you are like me at all but I have a bunch of quilt tops — or flimsies, as they are often called in quilt jargon — piling up and I can’t work fast enough to make a dent in them. Part of the problem is that I have NEW quilts to make, so it’s hard to work backwards to finish the stack of flimsies that I have already made, but haven’t finished yet. It’s such a vicious cycle….

Recently, I started brainstorming some ideas to power through those unfinished tops while still working on my current and future projects. Today I thought I’d share my ideas with you. Feel free to leave a comment if you have ideas, too, because I’d love to hear them. Maybe if we all brainstorm together, we can combat the universal quilting problem of too many projects and not enough time.

Ideas to Finish Your Flimsies

• Make a Plan of Action — Maybe it’s time for all of us quilters to go through our flimsies and look at them realistically — a very important first step so we know how many flimsies we really do have. How many of them can we really finish in a lifetime? Let’s be honest with ourselves here. Maybe divide them into 2 piles — the ones we think we might finish and the ones we won’t. Let’s keep only the ones we’ll actually finish and then write down a plan to get ‘em done. Soon that teetering stack of flimsies will be a thing of the past.

• Share them — Since you’ve decided which flimsies you are going to complete and you’ve made a written plan to accomplish that, why not share those unwanted flimsies with quilty friends, fellow quilt guild members, quilters who make charity quilts, a church quilt group, or some other charitable organization. Then you can clear away those unloved flimsies without guilt and make someone else’s heart happy.

• Take a Class — Maybe you don’t know how to machine quilt your own quilts. Why not learn how? Check out your local quilt shops or quilt guilds to find a machine quilting class. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to learn hand-quilting? What are you waiting for? Sign up for a class and get quilting those flimsies yourself!

• Use fleece — I’ve talked about using fleece on the backs of my throw quilts before. Check out my post on quilting with fleece HERE. Using fleece on the backs of throw quilts makes them super cozy and lightweight. Fleece fabric is relatively inexpensive and batting isn’t even needed, which makes using fleece also economical. And don’t forget time-saving — you only have to layer your flimsy with a single layer of fleece, which takes less time than using both batting and backing. Just remember that fleece is very stretchy while your flimsy is not and you may need to adapt your quilting designs to manage the stretchiness.

• Practice makes perfect — Just get those quilts layered with batting and backing and get quilting. Hand quilter? Set time aside every day to work on your hand quilting. Machine quilting? Use your flimsies as hands-on experience as you master free motion quilting! Start with table runners and smaller projects and work yourself up to larger projects as you feel more comfortable and your machine quilting skills improve. Wiggly lines and straight lines get the job done too.

• Long Arm Quilting — Find a local long arm quilter and work together to create a plan to get your large flimsies quilted. Maybe you can swing getting one done every month or every few months, or…? Do whatever works for you, just keep working towards your flimsy-free goal.

• Have a party — Enlist your friends and have a good old fashioned quilting bee, but instead of everyone working on the same quilt, ask each friend to quilt one of your smaller projects. Anything goes! Ask your friends to bring their sewing machines and you will have tables and extension cords at the ready and will provide all the munchies! When you ask your friends to help you, make sure you promise to help them finish their own flimsies.

• Presto Change-o — Who says a quilt top has to continue its life as a quilt? Why not repurpose a flimsy (or more) into a snazzy jacket. A tote bag or purse? Pillows for the couch? Place mats? Or whatever else your little heart desires. Have some fun with your flimsies and turn them into finished projects.

• Mix and Match — Speaking of chopping up your flimsies to make new projects, how about mixing and matches bits and pieces from different flimsies together into a new project?

• Host a Flimsy Swap — Gather up your quilt posse and have a fun flimsy swap. You might need to set some basic rules — the most important one that comes to mind for me would be that each participant must take as many flimsies as they bring for the swap, even if it means taking some of their own back home. Or limit the swap to one flimsy per person. Agree on a future date to have your new-to-you flimsies finished and have a quilt show of the completed projects. With snacks, of course. Then……..repeat. Often.

• Take Me as I Am — Maybe you don’t machine or hand quilt. Maybe you just don’t have the money to send your quilts out to a long arm quilter. So why not enjoy those flimsies just as they are? Fold them over the rungs of an old ladder. Drape them over the couch. Use them as table covers in the dining room. Fold them prettily and stack them in an old jelly cupboard. Quilts love to be admired and enjoyed, even if they aren’t quite completed. Just remember to continue to work towards getting them done, one flimsy at a time.

• Tie ‘em Up — Have you ever tied a quilt? This is how I made my first five or six quilts way back when. I backed them with a sheet and used a thicker fluffier poly batting. I sewed the layers together envelope-style and then used cotton crochet thread with a long needle to tie my quilts. I tied double knots and trimmed my threads close because I really didn’t want a hairy quilt. I usually placed my knots at seam intersections to hide them a bit better. Tying worked great and I could finish a throw or bed-sized quilt in a day. This was, of course, before I taught myself to do free motion quilting. Just make sure to put in enough ties to keep the batting from shifting around.

• Go Small — Maybe you love to make big bed quilts but can’t or won’t quilt them yourself or send them out to a long armer. My solution? Make them smaller! No one ever said you couldn’t cut up your quilt to make 2 or more smaller quilts! Maybe a big bed quilt could become a throw, a wall quilt, a table runner, a set of pillows? Bet you can manage those more easily! This is even a great way to create a new coordinated look for your space, too. Just think how fast you could whip up a stack of table runners or quilted scarves for Christmas gifts when you start with big quilt flimsies? Oh, the possibilities….

• Swap skills — You’ll need some friends to help you out with this idea. Have a friend who likes to machine quilt? Swap skills with them! If they will machine quilt one of your quilts, you will clean their house, make cookies, bathe their dog, babysit the kids, or whatever skills you can barter with. Maybe you can swap skills with more than one friend or even a local long arm quilter. Write a list of the skills you are willing to barter before you talk to people about swapping your skills for machine quilting. Just keep it legal, clean, and safe please.

• Make Toys — Why not find a brilliant collection of simple stuffed toy patterns you can make for kids and cut the pattern pieces out of your flimsies. Don’t have kids or grandkids? Donate your soft toys to a children’s hospital or other charitable institution. Lions, tigers, and bears….oh my!

• Repurpose — Did you know you can repurpose your flimsies? This is kind of like Presto Change-o above, but with a little twist. What else can your flimsies be besides quilts? Maybe you can recover a side chair with a pieced top to create a unique one of a kind accent for your space. Or perhaps you could make dining chair seat covers? Time to think outside the quilt here — anything goes.

I hope these ideas will inspire you to dive into your own stack of flimsies and get them done. From quilts to decor to soft toys. Upholstered foot stools and lampshades. Pillows and table runners. There are sew many projects you can create with your stack of flimsies. Sew, what are you waiting for???

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD