Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Incomplete Art

I have a guilty secret. I love to start quilts. I am not good at finishing them. I get the quilt top finished and then, I never seem to get around to quilting them.



Here is my current collection, spread over my ironing board. Sorry about the blurry shot. It didn't look that bad on the camera when I took it.

Some close-ups of the pile:

The wall hanging on the right is even basted to its batting and backing! The one on the left was a challenge piece from the Canadian Quilters on-line group, from about 3 years ago. 

These are placemats from a demo I did at the local guild, on using border print fabrics (Thanks, Jenny Beyer).
More placemats, and the quilt I was making for my son, while he was in college. He has now graduated, twice!
Mugmats that I made from the border print scraps, and the quilt I was making as my niece's wedding gift. I don't feel too guilty about that one, because the wedding is off now.

Okay, you have seen them all now. My church quilting group is having a quilt show, on November 17. Because of my bad habit of only finishing the tops, I have nothing to put in the show. So I am going to publicly declare that my goal is to finish this whole pile by November. I will keep you  posted.

Meanwhile, a young lady I know got married in June. Her grandmother was a quilter. While grandma was alive, she made this young woman a baby quilt, and a quilt for her "big" bed. After grandma died, the young woman's mother packed up all the quilting fabric and brought it home, thinking that, one day, mother would like to learn how to quilt. This past fall, mother decided she would love to be able to give her daughter a part of the quilting heritage, so she was going to commission the church quilt group to make a quilt, using grandma's fabric. As she went through the fabric, she opened a box and found a quilt top, entirely hand pieced! (see, I'm not the only one with the problem) So the quilters were instead commissioned to do the quilting.

The reason for the long story is that that quilt is now finished, and the young woman is moving with her new husband to a new home, away from here. The quilt is currently housed in a plastic garbage bag. Bad things happen to things in garbage bags, during moves. So, I made her a case for her quilt to travel to its new home.





The fabric is from the large stash that has been donated to the church quilters, except for the music fabric. The young woman is a violin teacher, and that fabric is from my scrap bag. I just did my standard pillowcase, and made it a little longer to hold the quilt. I think it took me 45 minutes, including the French seams. I love quick projects. Instant gratification.




6 comments:

  1. We all have the "start a quilt bug". Good to make a declaration so we can keep you to it, ha. I have heard bad stores about the quilt in a garbage bag. Nice idea you had to make a good bag for it.

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  2. We shall all remember, we heard it first here! Seriously, good luck!

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  3. Yes, we all definately have many more starts than finishes! I have dedicated this summer (May to September) to using up long held fabrics and long languishing quilt blocks into tops to donate -- a great motivator! You have LOTS of time to finish up a couple of things for the quilt show in November!

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  4. you mean we're supposed to finish them? Dang! Good luck with your challenge!

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  5. I was thinking I would be leaving a collection of quilt tops for my grandchildren. I have far too many tops sitting around waiting... Someday, I'll get that long arm and then I'll whip through them in no time (not likely to be happening).

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  6. Love the quilt bag, Kate. Good idea. Hope you get all the tops quilted.

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