My Goal for today -- Finish Something!

When I travel around the country and give lectures and workshops to guilds and in shops, I'm often asked if I still quilt for the "general public" as well as for Alex and other authors and teachers. I used to say "Yes, as long as you don't have a deadline", but my answer has had to change to "No, I just can't seem to work that into my schedule."

A perfect example of that is a quilt that I have had for five years (YIKES!!) from Laura Ramsey, an extremely patient soul in Glendale CA. I just couldn't decide what I wanted to do on this quilt, so I had my assistant pin it up and I would take it out of the stack every so often, look at it and put it back. I thought I might choose one of the quilting designs from Lee Cleland's book "Quilting Makes the Quilt" and so I kept the book with the quilt.

I made my final decision and quilted about 2/3 of the quilt in summer 2008, then got distracted and put it away again. Laura called the other day so I pulled it out of the stack one more time and laid it out on the bed in my guest room.

The quilt measures 72"x83", so about a full size; Laura got the pattern from an Oxmoor House book, "Quick and Easy Scrap Quilts". I guess it was quick if you didn't count the time it sat in the sewing room of your quilter!

Here is some of the quilting -- it radiates out from a focal point with curved lines that go through the whole quilt, including the border...

This is taken from the back, which is a tone-on-tone blue fabric with tiny white stars sprinkled all over. Roundish spirals and what I call "kindergarten stars" finish out the areas that are not lined.

My goal for today is to get this done and off to its owner. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a picture of the quilt with the quilting completed!