When is a white not white? When you try to match up fabric in a UFO that you started in 2010!
I am an unusual quilter in that I start and finish every project ASAP (This rule does not apply to any other craft I do). However, I had one UFO sitting there quietly daring me to finish it.
I had cut out all the pieces (so I thought) and had handed out blocks to members of the Barn Quilters Mosman as part of our friendship block exchange in 2010. I duly got them back and was short some of the centre 16 blocks. It was at this point that I realised I had not cut enough white fabric. Tragically, I had also run out of the original white fabric. I searched through my stash in poor light and triumphantly emerged with some more fabric.
Off I went sewing like mad. To my horror the next day I saw that the fabric I had chosen was a murky cream and the fabric was of a different (loose) thread count. The blocks looked awful. In horror - I packed the lot away meaning to try and match up that white and redo the blocks. A UFO was born!
From time to time I would tidy my cupboards and stumble across the UFO - take it out and be amazed that I had so little to do - but then put it back in its bag and get on with something else. Truth be told - I had fallen out of love.
The last 2 years have seen me assisting my father in dramatically reducing his possessions as he downsizes and moves into a retirement village. It has been a huge task and has motivated me to attempt to apply this to my own apartment (which is bursting at the seams with all the fabric I have). Hence the decision that the UFO had to go - the additional motivation of actually having a finished quilt to display in the Barn Quilters Mosman 2015 Show was all I needed.
Well it has been quite a journey and whilst finishing this quilt I have fallen in love again! This made finishing it so much more exciting.
I also found that I had underestimated the width of the quilt when purchasing fabric on sale for the backing. No issues there - I had a stack of scraps left - so ended up piecing a strip of about 5" wide and sewing between my two backing pieces. Problem solved.
The quilt is based on a pattern by Jacky Hens which appeared in Vol 19 No. 1 of the Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.
I dropped off the finished quilt top to Sue Rowles of Sue's Top Finish. I can't wait to get it back and add the binding.
Lesson learned along the way: buy a bolt of white fabric so that I never run out of the same shade of white!
