Another finished quilt—Plaid-ish

 Not a “finally” finished one; I started and finished this one within a couple of months.

Events happen that can compel one to react with a kindness or a loving gesture. A friend lost his wife to cancer. The quilt I never got around to making for her while she was going through treatment instead went to my friend. 

Back in my cross stitch days, I stitched several pieces for the two of them. One was a family “house established” piece that tested his ability to remember their wedding date. It was a struggle and not something I wanted to ask her about because I knew she would become suspicious and ask what was up! This was before the internet and we found a table that helped us pinpoint the exact date. When I was at their daughter’s home for Mary’s wake, I saw the piece showing in a photo during the video tribute. I almost cried.

I’ve known these people for over 45 years. It was high time to give one of them a quilt.

I enjoyed almost every moment of making Plaid-ish. It’s a free pattern from Erica Jackman of #kitchentablequilting - go check out all of the Plaid-ish quilts on Instagram. I did not enjoy all the cutting; I plan to order a custom die from Accuquilt to make the next one easier—and there will be a next one.

Every fabric in this quilt came from scraps and didn’t even make a dent in them. This is an excellent project to test your value sense; as a lover of low-volume quilts, I can see where I’ll make changes next time and use my iPhone’s photo editing capabilities to make better value choices.

Arranging the blocks

The best thing I did while making this quilt was to glue the seam allowances together prior to piecing. Piecing those tiny intersections went a lot more smoothly and I highly recommend it. 

I did straight line quilting using the walking foot and it was all smooth sailing. I used So Fine 40wt thread on the top and in the bobbin. The backing came from a piece of yardage that I have had for 18 years; the binding fabric I’ve had even longer. 

I am now creating my labels with my Bernina 790Plus; while I love having them printed by Spoonflower, there's a lot more instant gratification picking out a fabric from your stash and stitching out a few words and I don’t spend hours trying to make it perfect. I lost my photo of the label and I can't show it to you, but you've seen plenty of this style. I named it his "Retirement Quilt a/k/a a Hint to Go Fish" -- he's an avid fly fisherman and he'll be leaving next month for a trip to the Southern Hemisphere to go fly fishing for the first time in a very long time. 

He laughed when I told him how to fold a quilt. He said it would probably never get folded up because it’ll be on top of him all the time. I just grinned.

I hope his daughter sends me a photo of him snoozing underneath it.

Finished quilt!

You'll see at least one more post from me before the end of 2021--Go make!