Friday, October 25, 2013

31 Days - Day 25: The one that got away

Every so often, I lose my mind, starting a project for which I have no real use. This was one of those projects.

Black, white and red together are very striking. A black print with a small red flower print, a red fabric with tiny white pindots and a plain white broadcloth would make a great combination for a quilt. An Irish Chain pattern would leave plenty of room for fancy hand quilting.

So I thought back in 1987. The only problem? By the time the final borders were added, the quilt was a generous queen size. Just a bit too big for my twin bed.

The completed top languished in the "to be finished" stack for a long, long time. There were other quilts to be done, quilts that actually had an immediate use as gifts or other things. Why layer it up and do all that hand quilting, only to store the completed quilt?

In the early 2000's, when I was involved in the on-line quilting group, we did a number of swaps. One of them was UFOs - unfinished fabric objects. Quilt blocks you no longer liked. Fabric that wasn't to your taste anymore.

In a fit of decluttering, I decided to trade this quilt top.

The one that broke its chains and went free
I traded with a friend from Canada for a volume of fabric equal to the yardage in the quilt, plus a bit more for my time in making the top. She sent some absolutely lovely fabric from her stash, prints I'd not seen down here.

She did hand quilt the top - I saw a picture of the completed quilt and it is just gorgeous. It's nice to know someone is actually getting use out of it; it would have been a shame for it to lay about in the stack for another fifteen years or so.

The lesson learned? Don't start a project "on speck" - work on things that have an immediate purpose.


No comments: