Materials – 100% cotton fabric and 100% cotton thread, quilting thread

Hand pieced the blocks and the sashes

Machine pieced the borders

Hand quilted

Quilt Top October 2006 – 2007

Finished Finally April 2, 2014

78″ x 92″

Story

I’ve always wanted to quilt and with everything I do I always try to learn the “traditional” method first. I also thought that I didn’t have time for a new hobby. I was already into scrapbooking and cross stitch that I couldn’t find time for another hobby. It was a craft I would get into when I got older and had more time. Well, a week before I turned 30 I was reflecting on my life and I decided that I didn’t want to wait for a better time. I decided that I was just going to learn now and if it became another project that I didn’t get to – then so be it. And when you ask, the universe finds a way to give you what you want because that very week I found my Local Quilt Shop. I went in and found a beginners class for hand quilting the traditional way beginning on my birthday. The owner of the quilt shop was my first teacher and she owned the quilt shop for some twenty+ years. She retired in 2011 and sold the shop to one of the ladies who taught and worked there. I enjoy the hand process but I’m not sure if I’ll ever do another project like this one again. It takes too long.

Update as of 8/18/13

I’m on the inner border of the quilt. There are 3 borders: the white inner one, the red middle one, and the blue outer one. I’m working on the white inner one right now. I’m about half way done hand quilting that border and my goal is to finish it the month of August. I then plan on doing the red middle one in September and the blue outer one in October. As I move into the outer borders I’m coming face to face with an issue I’ve been mulling over these past few months. The whole quilt is quilted around the ditches and it works for the inner white border to do it the same way. But for the middle and outer border they are bigger and then really bigger and it wouldn’t be quilted right if I did it the same way for those two. So I’m trying to figure out how I should quilt those last two borders.

Update as of 10/13/13

I finished the second border and I’m working on the outer border now.  I plan on quilting one string every day until the third border is done.  Then I can bind it and put a label on the back. The plan is to get this done by November but as long as I work on this regularly I’m happy with my progress so far.

Update as of 11/29/2013

I haven’t done as much as I should have during the last few weeks on this project.  Now I may not be able to get this project done by the end of the year.  I’m currently working on the third border.  The plan is to have 3 rows of quilting on the third border.  I finished the first row weeks ago and I wanted to get at least the 2nd row done by the end of November.  I just finished the first side of the 2nd row so that’s not going to happen.  I still hope to get this done in the next few weeks so I’ve got to get the remaining 3 sides and do the 3rd row and finish with the border.  We’ll see how far I get.

Done as of 4/2/2014

woohoo!