For the last few years (maybe longer maybe shorter as the years all run together now) I’ve posted about this old Americana quilt kit I bought in Texas in 2012. I do not even have a picture of it!

I had it in my retreat suitcase and I carried it to each retreat for the moment when I had an opening for a new start.

By the time I opened it up I was shocked and dismayed and angry to find out that the pattern wasn’t even in the kit. And this, my dear friends, is why you don’t keep things unopened for years. The pattern was from a McCalls quilting magazine in 2009. I bought the kit in 2012 or 2013. And maybe at that time I could have found it floating around. But now in 2025, I have scoured the internet and have not been able to find it. And before you jump in and tell me I could purchase ALL of McCalls quilting magazines digitally, I know I can do this. But I don’t love this quilt and I don’t want to spend more money for this one quilt. And honestly, the mental obligation to do more from those files than just this quilt would add additional weight to the mess in the back of my head.

Anyway, the kit had the cutting instructions and I thought I could do the cutting and figure out how to put the quilt together based on that. So I did the cutting and tried sewing it together. The cutting instructions were not completely matching. Meaning the cut pieces that said they were for stars may say “main block” somewhere else. It’s not entirely exact because at this point I’m going off memory and don’t remember exactly. All I know is that I had to figure out which pieces I cut went to which blocks and it was not easy because the cutting instructions didn’t always use the same terms for the blocks or didn’t label the pieces as to which blocks they were for. As such, I kept putting it at the bottom of my list and this became a cross to bear rather than an enjoyable project.

I finally decided it’s just not worth it. I already spent a lot of money on the kit. It’s taken a lot of room in my retreat suitcase and in my mental space as I’ve kept it listed as a WIP since that first cut.

It’s time. I’m done. I’ve decided to donate it to the QOV group in my guild and they can figure it out or use the fabric and create something else entirely.

What a relief! And why did I not do this sooner?

Melanie