When I think back on the last two years, and what I have been up to. I wonder how it could possibly take so much time to finish a project. Did I really not have 20 minutes to spare? Why 20 minutes? Because that is exactly the amount of time it took me to put the back together so that my quilt would be ready for “quilting”.
Let’s remember how it all started. One week back in 2011 I decided that I would do “weekend warrior” segments on an old blog. Here is an excerpt from my first post there:
“I will be using a mix of blues, pinks, and greys. I hope to finish the top in 3 weekends or less.”
So, I thought I would finish this quilt top in 3 weeks. If that had been the case, then 3 weeks and 20 minutes later my quilt would be headed to the quilters. Hmmmm…so how did we get to two years?
Well the second weekend I worked on sewing it all together. So I got the cut parts ready and made some blocks, here is an excerpt about how that went:
“Quilting is definitely an art. For those that are experts at this, I tip my hat! Understanding why something doesn’t square up and how to fix it, is something to be learned. I spent the majority of day 2 creating 6 blocks that are not perfectly lined up and decided I needed to take a “first lesson” if you will, in quilting. So this morning(Day 3) I took some time to teach myself some new lessons. It was a good lesson and I learned much!”
I never did take it out. I am glad I didn’t. Now with the finished project you never would know. That is a good lesson for me to remember. Quilting can be forgiving if you aren’t going to enter it into a fair. Had I not thought about this problem so much, I probably would have finished the squares that weekend and would have been ready to piece together the remainder of the quilt the next weekend. Instead, I got discouraged. I put it away, promising I would get it out in a few weeks.
A few weeks turned to into about a year. A year later I spent some hours finishing the top, it felt like such an accomplishment! Here is a picture of the quilt top.
So now you say, you only have 20 minutes left right? Well, no. Actually, it has now been more than a year later (by about 4 months). I finally made a list and completing this quilt was on it. Not knowing it was only going to take me 20 minutes more, I drug my feet a little. Finally, this past week I said, let’s do this. So I started sewing the two pieces together and called the quilter. 20 minutes. All I do when I think of this now is shake my head. 20 minutes. That was all that it took, to take a project from almost done to complete.
Finished quilt:
I can honestly say that I am in love with it. Probably because of the time it took to complete, but also for the original reason. The design and fabric. What’s really comical about this is that I have been collecting ideas from magazines for my next quilt project, for two years. Which of course I already have chosen and can’t wait to get started on.
It will probably just take me 20 minutes to get things organized and get started….
simply cilicia 