Tangled Garden - A Tangled Mess?

I don't have a finish to share with you just yet (the kids aren't back at school yet), but I'm working on my finish for next week when I host TGIFF! If you are wondering where this week's TGIFF! linky party is, it's at Quokka Quilts. Hope you go check it out and link up any finishes you might have.

This is my sad, neglected Tangled Garden. It seems that I can't grow/make quilted flowers any better than I can grow real flowers. I think I started this 11 or 12 years ago. I wanted to do some improvisational foundation pieced flowers using my scraps. I didn't know anything about colour or value theory at the time, and just went at her. I managed to finish the top in time for my first machine quilting class 9? years ago. I thought this would be a good quilt for practicing free motion quilting.

Yeah, it didn't work. I'm not sure if you can see the free motion quilting (FMQ) spirals? Big stitches, skipped stitches, very wobbly lines. It was a very disappointing experience.

A lot of the problem was me - I couldn't get the speed of the machine to match the speed of my hands. In hindsight, I know that if I had just practiced more, I would have gotten much better. Instead, I gave up.

Part of the problem though was that some of the blocks are five or six layers deep. I didn't trim as I added 'petals' wonky-log-cabin-style -- oops! I took FMQ stitches out and tried again -- repeatedly, but in the end I figured that the layers were too much for my little White machine to handle. So into the WIP pile it went.

I've been working on my FMQ so I think I can have another go at this. I also think my Bernina might be able to handle the tangled mess of layers. I also want this off my WIP list. And to give me added incentive to finish it, I'm going to do it as part of the Quilting is Murder UFO Challenge. I have until February 11th to see if I can give this poor project some TLC.

Think I can save this Tangled Garden from Certain Death? Do you have a UFO that could be saved? This looks like a fun challenge to help get those projects finished. Plus, you could win a sewing machine! Um, nothing else to add. You didn't see that part, right? No need for you to check out the link or enter. Really.

Happy Friday all!