Quossum

My latest finish!

The Quilt: The label on this one reads "The 'What Was I Thinking' Quilt...with Saner Modifications." As you can imagine, this one has a Story.

A long while ago, I had a quilter friend who was looking to sell this multi-part, very elaborate, very fancy and complicated quilt kit. It was one of those month-by-month deals, but no, not a "buck a block," more like a "thirty bucks a kit" thing, with each kit containing fabric, sturdy plastic templates for the fussy-cut pieces, and detailed instructions.

This was not my thing. Not even the colors appealed to me. But my friend was in a financial pinch at the time, I was kind of a softie, told myself that working with templates might be a fun learning experience...I ended up buying the kit and all its parts from her.

So I did set about putting this thing together. Sure enough, I was not wild about the template method. Each part had very specific ways and order to lay down the templates on the pieces of fabric, with no room for error. Then you had to draw around the templates and cut out the shapes (or use a small rotary cutter around the tiny edges), then sew them together with bias edges galore...it was not fun for my scrappy, strip-piecing, thangles-loving self. The blocks you see on the finished quilt are the "easy" ones...at some point I gave up on the more difficult blocks, cannibalized the remaining kits for their fabric, and finished however I could.

Why it became a UFO: I have no idea. All I know is that there was a box on my shelf with this quilt in it, and when I was listing my UFOs I listed it. When I opened the box in March, I found a completed top, a completed back, a completed label (which had the date 2011 on it!!!), and even a completed bias binding strip, cut, sewn, and ironed. With all that done, why didn't I go ahead and finish the quilt back in 2011? I have no idea.

Why I finished: I knew this one was "close to done," I was feeling like free motion quilting, and its recipient's birthday was coming up, so it was chosen! I added "finished in 2020" to its label, basted it, and finished quilting it within a few days. When I put on the binding, I found that it was about 8" too short. What the--?!? Did younger me not know how to properly measure binding? Did the kit's skimpy fabric quantities fail me? Sheeze.

The Quilt's Fate: This is meant for my mom. The colors are her aesthetic, and it will go perfectly in her bedroom. She'll receive this for her birthday. Funny, I seem to remember hiding it once when it was a work in progress in my quilting room when my mom came over. Who knows, maybe that's why it became a UFO--stuffed in its box because its intended recipient visited, only to be forgotten until nine years later...

I usually show the back of my quilts, too, but this one is rare for me: No pieced back, just a pretty floral. What Was I Thinking, indeed!

Stay safe and healthy, everyone!