I’d entered my heart quilt in our biennial quilt exhibition this Spring. Of course, after a month of deliberation and trying to fix my pesky prairie point border, I gave up and took it apart the week before it was due. Spent an evening cleaning off all the little bits of thread. Fun!
Once I laid everything out flat again, I set the points to the correct depth, pinned them on, and pillow-topped the border again. This time, all went as planned and I could begin quilting.
Another Autumn Retreat in Marin brings the saga of my ‘Labor of Love’ Heart quilt closer AND (sigh) further from completion.
Let me start by saying that I almost finished the backing Saturday. Seems I only had a 24” x 95” piece of the burgundy left, so I split it for the two outside borders and pieced the middle with all the leftover 3-6” strips. It looks so nifty and could be a quilt on its own. Other quilters would say I was crazy to be putting so much work into a backing, so I decided this would be reversible! It’s a traditionally pieced design on one side and the modern stripes on the other. Yeah, I’m crazy.
Thirteen years ago, I embarked on a ‘Labor of Love’ as it were.
As the story goes, in 1998, I wanted to make a nifty Holiday quilt, but I wanted some practice first. So I planned a quilt-a-month project for 1999 to get warmed up. My Heart Quilt was only the second quilt on the list. [Insert heavy sigh here] It was a great start, sewing and piecing the hearts together that February. Unfortunately, the corner blocks stumped me and nothing I tried looked right. I shelved the project momentarily, but between travel, distractions and moving to another house, the better part of the decade zipped by with little more than a passing glance in 2003 & 2005 as I still had no better idea about how to finish those corners.
Then, I started going to March & September quilting retreats in 2009 and soaking up the knowledge and inspiration of my quilting collective. After my ‘Tie-land hiatus,’ I worked out the corner quandary and was emboldened in the home stretch to declare a brilliant decision to use Prairie Points around the border.
There’s nothing like having three full days to focus on Kreativity!
Earlier this spring, I got the call asking if I could fill in for an attendee who was unable to make the March quilting retreat. Would I be able to swing it last minute? Would I ever!
I have been percolating several projects for the past 2-9 years without scheduling time to complete them. How fabulous to have this offered now!