Chip and Dale Designs

My Quilt Top from Hell

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, the tale a fateful… and now you are welcome. While you are reading this rant of a blog, you will be humming the theme to Gilligan’s Island, one of the greatest shows to ever be on television. Remember when Kurt Russell was the jungle boy? I loved him even way back then- anywhoo-

This past weekend I finally finished a quilt top that has been in progress for about 3 years. I think I heard angels sing at one point- but that was in between all of the cussing. It could have just been the other voices in my head- I am still not sure. The dogs’ ears did perk up at one point.

This quilt began as a project with friends. We were all shopping one Saturday celebrating one of our birthdays, when we saw this quilt book. My cohorts are big fans of reproductions-me, not so much. Most times it is hard for me to picture a quilt in anything other than what is in the photo on the cover. Lame, I know. I am trying, people. Don’t judge me. We also had hit a quilt show recently where this quilt was displayed in something other than reproductions. It was beautiful. So, due to the fact I was getting a birthday discount that month I actually purchased yardage to start my anti-reproduction top.

A few months later, after my fabric cured for a while (this has to be done-ask any quilter-some people call it fabric hoarding but they are just on crack) I took it to a quilt retreat to work on it. As luck would have it, my friend Lexie, master of drawing and quilting was done with her project and volunteered to trace all of my patterns for the applique onto fusible web. God love her. I got the middle block fused down and a few of the smaller ones done before I left the retreat. I brought it home to let it cure some more. Again, this must be done. Right Becky R.?

I had quite a bit of time off this year around the holidays and decided now was the time for all good men- oh wait- that was typing class. I decided it was time to get the top done. I finished all of the machine applique and was finally ready to get this damn thing put together. I starched the center block and cut it to the correct size according the directions. Then it was time to piece the 4,000 flying geese that go around the center. After I got all of those little bastards done, I read the next step in the directions, which did not amuse me. It basically said that the math didn’t work out exactly for the geese to go around the center and you may have to fudge a bit. WTH?? If I fudged at all, I would lose the points on my geese, which did not amuse me. I plowed through, and by some miracle I did not have to fudge at all. Whewww. On to the 4,250,323 half square triangles.

After I had all of them pieced, I had to trim them to 1-7/8”. Odd size- and let me tell you if you do not have one of these rulers go to the Bloc Loc website and buy the 2-1/2” and 6-1/2” square ruler. Do not pass go, do not collect $200- just do it! This ruler saved my life- or my husband's- not sure which at this point.

I was finally ready to piece the borders. I looked at her diagram, and sewed all of my units to look just like hers. I got the borders ready to put on my design wall, and guess what? The damn drawing does not match the layout of half square triangles in the quilt piecing diagram or the picture of the quilt! If you all saw smoke or heard a sonic boom Saturday coming from Thornton it was me. Poor animals- I think I broke their eardrums. After a shot of whiskey, a 3 mile walk and a trip to Sprouts (they had clementines for $2 a bag- score!) I was ready to dive back in. I figured only the author of the book and I would ever know these borders were not facing the right way. These borders were not easy- directions were telling me to use a generous ¼” seam allowance at some points, and a scant seam allowance at others. This does not float my boat. I was so close to the end, however I just kept going. Darling hubby fed me, I popped a shit load of Motrin and kept sewing. Finally, at 7:30 I was done. Finis. Finito. (I have no idea if those are words- don’t stop me now, we are almost done here).

Here it is in all of its glory-(Olwyn if you are reading this I was not sure about an apostrophe after its- input please?) I took it on my walk this morning and found this great bench at the lake/pond. In Pennsylvania, it would be a pond. In Denver, anything over a 2’ square is called a lake- go figure. Colorado is close to perfect but we aren’t quite there yet. We made great inroads with the whole pot thing but that is just getting us started. Haha.