Worth Finishing: Marybeth's circa 1984 Hand Pieced Sampler, Custom Quilted by Yours Truly

Good morning, friends!  I am shocked to be able to share this finish with you today, because I was fiercely procrastinating coming back to it.  I decided to load it up on the frame, fire up the long arm machine and JUST DO IT.  Behold, my friend Marybeth's oldest UFO, a hand pieced sampler quilt that she started in 1984 for her (now adult) son's "Big Boy Bed."  When Marybeth showed me the blocks a year or two ago I begged her to finish the project and promised that, if she put the blocks into a quilt top, I would custom quilt it for her.

Marybeth's circa 1984 Sampler Quilt, Custom Quilting Completed

Not gonna lie; this project was a challenge for me.  I've quilted hundreds and hundreds of quilts with edge to edge, allover quilting, but less than a dozen custom quilts on my long arm machine.  This one was a combination of digital computerized designs, hand guided ruler work quilting, and free motion quilting, and I quickly realized that I have a lot to learn when it comes to quilting computerized designs in borders and sashing.  Knowing that this quilt was really special to Marybeth and irreplaceable, I got into my own head too much with the Analysis Paralysis...  I am ashamed to confess that I have had this quilt for EIGHT MONTHS before finally finishing it and sending it back to Marybeth!

Wish I'd Used More Contrasting Thread

I've got a lot of Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda notes for this quilt.  Like, I wish I'd used the pale straw yellow thread in that green dotted fabric patch in the photo above, so you could see the quilting motifs in the "lawn" patch.  I wish I'd done a better job of keeping the amount of quilting more consistent throughout the quilt, too -- notice how the quilting lines in the red and blue block below the house are so much farther apart than in the house block, for instance.  If this had been my own quilt, I would have gone back in and added more quilting to the red and blue block to solve that issue, but I know that Marybeth prefers the look and feel of LESS quilting and I'm already worried that I may have "overquilted" it for her preferences.  

Second Thoughts on Scrappy Celebrations, Emma Louise Muslin Background for Stonefields + New Specs for Rebecca

Good morning, Quilty Peeps!  How is it Wednesday already?!  And how is it nearly the end of May when it was just February the other day?!!  Time doesn't just march on at a steady pace.  Time is picking up speed, taking shortcuts, and leaving me in the lurch.  All of which warrants a new practice for me: Reevaluating whether or not to keep working on a project all the way to the bloody end, just because I started it!

Here's your last glimpse of my inspired-by-Scrappy-Celebrations project on the design wall before I take it down and put it into a crypt prison project box from which it may or may not ever emerge:

I Celebrate Abandoning This Project Today!

This project has been tried and found guilty of Failing to Sufficiently Challenge and Engage My Brain, Wasting My Time, and Wasting My Tilda Precuts!  That last charge was the most serious, and I'm afraid I was an accomplice in this crime against my creative energy.  

Two things initially appealed to me about the Scrappy Celebrations quilt when I first saw it: The quilt "breaks the rules" about combining 4-patch and 9-patch blocks in the same quilt, but it works because only squares and rectangles are used in all the blocks.  I still find that interesting, but as I've been making the blocks I've been thinking ahead and dreading what a pain in the tush it will be to sew them together with all these seam allowances going different directions.  So I had already been toying with the idea of adding scrappy sashing strips between my blocks, but sashing increases the size of a quilt so I'd have fewer blocks (and less variety in my quilt) if I did that:

54 x 64.5 Tilda Celebration With Scrappy Sashing

In the EQ8 rendering above, I've arranged the 21 9" blocks that I've already sewn along with 9 more block mockups and "painted" my sashing randomly with prints from the Tilda Sunday Brunch collection to get an idea of what that would look like.  Meh.  I don't hate it, but I wish I hadn't made so many blocks using the same fabrics!