I'm happy now

I like how this quilt is going to turn out. It should be named for Goldilocks, as it will end up being ‘just the right size.’

There is still another border I want to put on it, just to finish it off. I am thinking a darker border; my husband thinks a lighter one. Then again, I may just leave it as is. I like it, so I will just have to audition a few fabrics to determine if I like it better with another border, or not. There are no time constraints on this project, so I will have to simply ponder my options.

Pondering my options is, for me, the most challenging part of quilt making. It is also my favorite. I am definitely a pro-choice quilter.

I’m already so glad I decided to fix this quilt top. It would have been too small, at only four squares wide and four long.

I defy anyone to pick out which row I just added to this quilt top, which has been sitting around unfinished since 2015.
While it was only one row, it turned out to be a bit more than I bargained for.

I had to do a little unsewing. There were some decisions I had made early on that I no longer recalled, like making the center circle of the Dresden an alternate color. I had to review how to applique a perfect circle, since I forgot how to do it.

I initially made the sashing and sewed it on without the cornerstones. I had to rip it out. Then I made the cornerstones, five in all, wrong. I reversed the colors, so I had to rip those out too. Fortunately, much of the fabric from my blunders was reusable. It was just a matter of getting it right.

Once I make the decision on the final border or no border, I will add backing and batting and it will be time to quilt.

Finishing this will probably take at least a year, if I decide to quilt it by hand. I’m starting to rethink that decision, at least partially. There are lots of seams in this quilt, which makes hand-quilting a challenge. Not only that, but I haven’t quilted in years. It will take some time to get regulate my stitches and be comfortable with the tiny needle that I’m no longer used to. The light lavender in the sashing and cornerstones has a silver fleck to it, making it heavier than the other fabrics. That might make for some tricky quilting by hand as well. The solution may be to combine both hand and machine quilting. The time frame will likely remain unchanged because I want to hand-quilt. There is nothing more satisfying than a cold winter’s day with a quilt hoop draped on my lap, a cat or two, or more hanging around, as I work my needle back and forth through the layers of a quilt. It doesn’t hurt that I like this quilt and will enjoy working on it.

Organization and efficiency combine to get things done

Being organized is great on its own. Not only does it add to efficiency, but I’ve found recently that it also will allow me to finish what I’ve started.

I began this quilt a couple years ago—a purple Dresden Plate quilt.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. I had toyed with the idea of hand-quilting it rather than quilting it on the machine. Since it is a traditional design, I thought traditional quilting would be fitting.

Not long ago, I unfolded it and was a bit surprised that it was a square, rather than a rectangle. I was bothered by that. I have no idea why I did that.

For a few weeks, I have been thinking about this, wondering if there was enough fabric to finish one more row. I know I had all the material in a plastic container that had been used for this quilt. I hadn’t done anything with it when I was organizing my stash recently.

Without actually really looking in the box, I figured there probably wasn’t enough fabric to add another row. I reasoned that since I had planned to add a border around it in a darker color anyway, I could simply add two borders on the top and bottom with one along the sides. That wasn’t an ideal solution, but it would make the quilt rectangular.

Since I had recently finished my baby quilt, and had a “clean” quilting space, I finally decided to open the box. I was surprised to see enough leftover fabric to finish four more blocks. Not only were there large pieces of fabric, but there were also several of the 4” fan blades or wedges, already cut. One “plate” consists of 20 wedges, which means I needed 80 of them. There may have been that many, although there were only quantities of about 15 different fabrics. I wanted no duplicates, so cut a few more to make up the difference.

In the box, there were also several squares of the background prints--alternating white-on-white and white-on-cream paisley prints—already cut.

The only thing left was to check out the sashing fabrics.

This is where the organization comes in. Since I had just “filed” my fabric by color, into cube shelves, it was simple to take a quick peek. I pulled out just what I needed in minutes.

I have been busy the last couple days, sewing the Dresdens together and hand-stitching them onto the background fabric. The four new blocks are almost completed. Hand quilting this quilt will be a marvelous project this winter.

Is anything better than finishing a quilt?

For the first time since 2015, I can proudly say I finished a quilt. It feels good!

Oh, I have done a couple of small projects since then, some seasonal table runners and pillows, but my last actual finished quilt was my pink flamingo quilt in July 2015. I loved that quilt. And now I love this baby quilt, lovingly created for our nephew and his wife’s first baby.

This was so much more than a gift for a new baby. It was a gift to me as well, a breakthrough, a therapeutic sense of freedom. I needed to get back into the activity I loved—quilting.

When my husband had a stroke a couple of years ago, our lives changed forever. I became a care giver. Between that and daily chores—both his and mine—as well as seemingly continuous doctor and therapy visits, there wasn’t much time for leisure activities. But, we’ve settled into a bit of a routine now. I found myself longing to return to the activity I loved. I still have so much to learn. I have barely scratched the surface in the past 20 years of my quilt making. Besides, I am the kind of person for whom it is just no big deal to leave a sink full of dirty dishes if there is quilting to be done. I know those dishes will wait for me. Same holds true with the vacuuming, laundry, scooping kitty litter, taking out the garbage, cutting the grass, and all the other things that need to be done. I consider life to be a constant re-evaluation of ever-changing priorities. And for me, quilting is toward the top of the list. There are times when other things take precedence, but that is the beauty of flexibility. Basically, my philosophy is to do whatever moves me at the time. There are of courses exceptions, but hopefully, those have subsided for a while.

I enjoyed making this Lemoyne Star quilt. From what I can see, all the white on white fabric is right side up, any seams are in-tact, although I did have to repair a couple that didn’t quite catch the fabric in the flange area, the points haven’t been chopped off, and the quilting looks pretty decent overall. I’m happy with it and will be proud to give it away.