I'm back! February was a wash thanks to the issues I had with my machine. Took it to the shop, brought it home, it still wasn't working, took it back to the shop...ended up getting a new bobbin case dedicated to free motion quilting, along with a new free motion quilting foot, and whoa--once those were in play, the rest of this quilt flew by to become my first finish for March!
The Quilt: This piece started as a Thangles "buck-a-block" deal through a quilt store I visited frequently at the time. You know the deal: Pay one dollar for the kit for one block, but you have to come into the store each month. While you're there, you're sure to spend more than the obligatory buck! It was so long ago that I have no idea what store it was, just that I was determined to not lose out and so I faithfully retrieved my block each month, even when I stopped putting them together.
Why it became a UFO: I'm not really sure. I think it was just a victim of my quilting whims or perhaps seeing another shiny object to play with, or maybe the fact that some of the blocks as designed got a little more complicated, so I set them aside as "too hard."
Why I finished: After two finishes in January where I chose quilts to complete that were close to done already, I decided that next I would choose the one that had the least amount done on it. That was this one, with about six (rather wonkily) completed blocks and six sad baggies of strips. Pulling them out, it was immediately evident that my skills have grown since whenever it was that I did the first few blocks! I modified the designs of the "too hard" blocks to easier versions and quickly got the remaining blocks together. Then--oh joy!--a trip to the quilt store was necessary to get fabric for the setting blocks and strips. Their more tedious construction took me into February.
For the back, I dug through my "lasagna" pile of 4 1/2" strips, pulling anything brown, red, gold. Spray basted it and went to town. Insert machine woes here, leading to lots of errors in the quilting--clumsy stitching, places where I had to frog, thread changes, starts and stops, wrinkles quilted over. To my eyes, they glared. So, once I finally got the machine fixed and got this thing quilted, I decided to go ahead and wash it. As I suspected they would, the "errors" more or less have disappeared, or at least gone into the realm of "you'd have to look hard to find them."
The Quilt's fate: Undetermined as yet. I'll have to think over my "friends who need a quilt" list and see if there's anyone who would like this style and color palette. My husband kind of has been hinting that it would look good on our bed, so maybe it won't find another home after all!
Next up: Another quilt that has far to go, so I might not have another finish for March. But hey, Spring Break is coming, so maybe...