Finally Finished and Finally Started

Starting a blog is something I have wanted to do for over a year - but sometimes my intentions are great but my actions are slow.  I have just finished a quilt that I started in 1988 - hence the Finally Finished and Finally Started title of this post.

In 1988 I didn't have children and decided to pick up a new hobby - quilting.  I had always sewn and had several friends who quilted.  I took a class through the Raleigh, NC park and rec department from an elderly gentleman who learned to quilt from his mother when he was a child.  Did we do a small pieced quilt or a sampler - on no we did a queen size Dresden Plate - 12 fourteen inch blocks.  All cut by templates and scissors.  This quilt did not see a rotary cutter until this year when I squared it up.

I didn't know what an applique stitch looked like - nor was a quarter inch seam stressed.  My husband called the blocks doilies.  By the time I had appliqued all 12 blocks and had pieced the top - I was sick to death of this quilt.  I tried - twice to hand quilt it - once with a fluffy polyester bat.  I am not a hand quilter. 

Then I moved on to machine quilting.  The first time I tried to quilt it using a very small table - about two feet square - epic fail.  Then I moved on to a John Flynn quilting frame - epic fail. 

I also moved four times and had two children (both now in college).

Last year our guild started a PHD program (projects half done) as an incentive to finish all those UFO's around.  This quilt made it on my list last year - and that is as far as it got.

This year the quilt not only made the PHD list - but it is Finally Finished.  I have a wonderful table my husband made for me, a machine that has needle down and speed control, and a lot more experience under my belt.  I started seriously quilting it after Christmas and put the label on it today. 

The quilt I am working on now - a pieced, abstract art quilt about 18 inches square.