Feels good to Finish

Finally! At the end of March I finished a small project that I began in May 2009 not long after I took the plunge and joined my local quilting guild. Felt like I'd been working on it forever! One of my oldest (in the sense of time, not age) and dearest friends is a school teacher back in Ontario - four provinces away. I haven't seen her in years, but we keep in touch through email and the occasional letter.

After discovering a new love for quilting, I wanted to do something super special for Judith, so I designed a simple little wall hanging with a school house, some stars and apples. I threw in some geese just because they looked folksy, and that little harlequin border at the bottom just for some bright colour. Did I say simple? That's me. My brain was the simple factor, not the wallhanging.

I committed every newbie mistake in the book, and I could probably add a chapter or two. The best one was that I made up the label right away attached it - for Christmas 2009. May to December, I figured I was giving myself lots of time to finish. The piecing went together rather quickly as I raced to get it finished for Christmas. It was the quilting that did me in. I sewed it, then ripped it out. Sewed it and ripped it out. I think I've mentioned that part of the project on this blog in the past. Yep, I became ruthless at removing bad stitching.

The good part is, I learned a lot while making it. As I told Judith, it has my worst stitching and my best stitching in it. Some of it I just couldn't remove without taking the entire thing apart. We just have to learn to live with our mistakes, sometimes.

I was so elated in finally finishing it that I made a couple of little mug rugs to go with it. (Maybe to rationalize why it had taken me so long...) A couple of leftover stars that didn't get used (because they were too wonky - but I've since learned that wonky can be fun) and some leftover material. Now those only took me a couple of days to do. Go figure.

So now she has them. And she says she likes them. But Judith has the rare ability to see past the imperfect surface and see the love and the effort that went into a gift, which was my intention when I made it, because she is the sister I never had.

Ginger says, that ear is just too tempting not to bite

Rusty says, $**^#*%!!

Until next time,