FINISHING THE ABANDONED QUILT

Cottonwood Butte in the distance; crop in foreground is spring wheat.

Mike rode into town at 11:00 a.m. last Sunday (July 2), a strong finish to his annual ten-day motorcycle trip. Bess and I were glad to see him. He cleaned and serviced his motorcycle while I laundered his clothes. We returned to the farm on the Fourth and enjoyed the tranquility. (Fireworks make Bess nervous.)

Winter wheat ripening quickly

In 2007, I took a quilt-making class based on the pattern “Turning Twenty Again” by Tricia Cribbs. The pattern calls for 20 fat quarters cut to various sizes, sewn into blocks, and then joined to make the quilt top. The class was not specifically for beginners, but the sponsor assured me that I was capable of doing it.

The class turned out to be a one-day sew-along rather than an instructional event, and my quilt turned into a debacle. The blocks were not square, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. I sewed the blocks together, then took them apart and sewed them back together again. That didn’t work, so I eliminated the worst of the blocks and sewed them together again. Now I had a smaller quilt, which was fine, but it was still wrong. I was upset, and Mike felt sorry for me. Eventually, I decided not to finish it. I stored it and happily forgot about it.

But recently, I heard an expert quilter give the following advice: “Finish your quilts. So it’s wonky. It doesn’t really matter. You will eventually get better, but you won’t get better if you don’t finish your quilts.”

It was music to my ears. My childhood training was to look at each project with a critical eye, so I’m hard on myself when things don’t come together correctly – and that’s most of the time. I’m just not a precision worker, but I love the home arts.

So, when I recently came upon that wonky first quilt, I resolved to finish it. In fact, I was surprised to see that I had already affixed the backing and quilted it. I only needed to square it up and bind it to have a usable porch or picnic quilt, which was my original intent.

And during staycation, I did just that. The experience of finishing was the goal. “No ripping, no fretting,” I reminded myself. I cut the discarded wonky blocks into strips and sewed them together for the binding. I tried my best to miter the corners, and two of them were really pretty good.

Now it’s on to the next thing, wherever that takes me. KW

Looking toward Central Ridge