See You Around

I know I keep coming back to this quilt. The blocks were hand stitched from a pattern and technique by Mountain Patchwork. The blocks have been my travel project for years, and only recently I finished the blocks, and assembled a quilt during a mini-retreat to Canada with my friend Brenda Miller.

I was all set to add a small border to the quilt, but Brenda suggested a much bigger border than I had originally planned. I acquiesced. And I do like the wide border on this quilt. I haven’t measured in a while, but I’m pretty sure the quilt qualifies as a generous lap quilt, if not a twin.

This week I completed a milestone, the blocks (all 20) are quilted, generally done in the ditch with a few quarter-inch and half-inch lines of quilting (all in bright blue thread).

Almost done right?

Except for that border. This 6” border goes on for miles and miles around this quilt!! And all that mileage needs to be quilted!

Because I’m probably a little bit crazy, I decided to break the border into three sections - the light green border is getting quilted 1/4” away from the seams (as well as in the ditch).

At this point, I’m ready to have this quilt done, so wasn’t feeling particularly creative when it came to deciding on a border quilting design for the larger blue border. Not to mention that the blue border was too big for any of the stencils I have.

So I improvised with two different stencils and a line of straight stitching separating them. Love the blue thread however (and I can’t believe I’m saying this because blue is one of my favorite quilting colors) I’m getting a little tired of the blue!! (Does this happen to you too?)

Enter red for the straight line of stitching, and bright green for the inner stencil pattern. Sticking with the blue thread for the outer pattern. Not sure if you can see, but the ropey egg and square are on the inside edge of the blue border and the scallops with diamonds are going on the outer edge of the border.

I can see this train heading for 'Disaster Station' based on two distinct possibilities. . . First, using stencils for borders can get interesting as you approach the corners. You have to plan ahead and unch the stencil a little bit one way or the other as you reach each corner - or the corner pattern doesn't match up. A disastrous corner experience could launch this nearly complete quilt into exile.

And second. This basket of in-progress handwork is starting to call my name somethin’ awful.

And third (I know I said two, but #3 kinda goes back to the original issue) did I mention there are miles and miles of borders around this thing??

In auto racing, a white flag means one more lap to go, but in just about everything else, a white flag means ‘I give up!’

Shaking my head. . . I see the white flag, and I hope that I make it to the checkered flag.

Happy Stitching! 
Joan Ford