I did it everyone :) :) :) I did the two things i wanted to do. I made the wallhanging quilt for my hd clinic, as a gift to them. And now i've finished the raffle quilt, and i'm going to make one each year that i'm still able to :) And the raffle quilt funds are going straight to the Michael Hayden lab at ubc for Huntington's Disease research :) The quilt is called The Rose, and this is the poem i made to go with it :) The poem will be on the quilt label, i just havent done the label yet:
The Rose
I am a rose that has no stem, but i am not alone,
Many leaves surround and care for me, and help me through life's storms.
I am a rose, and i have Huntington's Disease,
And soon, yes very soon, all roses will have stems
And guess what, i'm writing a front page article on my HD forum all about my quilt :) I think my quilt came out really good, the only thing i don't like is the wonky feathering i did in the burgandy borders lol, but oh well, it's made by someone with hd, and that's what the raffle quilt is all about, and each year my quilting will look better and better. I did stippling in the borders, and some feathers around the big centre medalion. This is my very first free-motion quilting. I quilted it in sections, then joined the sections. It came out really square :) And my borders went on great. I used to measure and pin my borders, and that never worked out good, so this time, no measuring, just took an extra long strip and attached it, no pinning, just pull top fabric slightly taught as i went. My binding i love too. I've done 2 1/2" binding before on another quilt, and it looked bulky, so i did a 2" strip on this one, and it looks perfect. I did the binding same as the borders, no measuring or pinning, sewed from the front, and pulled slightly taught, and then i've never mitered my bindings before, but i saw a u-tube video on how to mitre them, so i did that. Then when i flipped to the back, i was going to hand sew it, and i just thought i didnt feel like it lol, so, i machine stitched from the back, keeping folded edge of binding right to the left of my stitching line, and it worked! lol On the back the binding looks machine stitched, but on the front, the stitching never hit my binding once, instead, it just looks like a row of quilted top stitching right next to the binding. Sorry, i think im blowing my own horn, dont mean to sound like that, but just excited that it actually is done, and looks ok too :) And it's queensize, 86x86. Thank you guys for all your encouragement and support :) :) :)