Ok~ quick math here: 252 billion seconds ago is roughly eight years, which is approximately when I started this quilt!
This was the quilt I started in Lawry's Absolutely Beginning Quilting Class Fall 2003, when I first moved to Sisters (all my friends in Portland said I would have to take up quilting if I was going to live in Sisters!)
I finished the quilt top by the final day of class and actually had quilted several lines of "in the ditch" quilting along the sashings. That's when I decided this quilt was just too big for me to handle on my basic Kenmore machine. I talked to a long-arm quilter who said if I picked out the "invisible thread" quilting I had already done, she would be happy to quilt this for me...by the time I finally got around to and finished "un-quilting", she was no longer quilting for hire!
Last year I hired Cindy, from here at the Stitchin' Post, to do the quilting. She did a fantastic job making each block special, with beautiful feathery hearts & circles. Cindy has a great eye for visualizing what quilting motifs will look best in each area of a pieced top. So the quilt has been sitting in a corner of my sewing room for yet another year, quietly whispering "binding...binding...binding."
Now finally...this is my first UFO of 2012. I didn't quite make January, but I'm just so happy to have this quilt finished. It was an anniversary gift to my husband in 2004, when it was just a finished top. It was a birthday gift to him in 2011 when it was three layers quilted together. And this week it was a Valentine's gift to him in 2012 as a finished quilt. He's waited a long time to snuggle under this quilt!
For everyone working toward the 2012 UFO Challenge, I hope you too are making progress. Thank you D.M. for giving me the "kick-in-the-pants" I needed to finish this project...! ~Tamra
