A Quilting Project Completed

Last week I had said I would be posting on my denim project.  Progress has been made, but not enough to make it worth taking pictures.  I ran into a few snags along the way that put me behind.  More about that in the next week's post.  I will be blogging on the denim project again then. 

For now, I wanted to post that one of my long term projects has been completed.  I finally finished the hand quilting on my Star and Leaf quilt.  The finished quilt was a long time coming.  I started quilting it in January of 2017.  I can hardly believe that it took two years to finish this quilt, but it has.  I guess that is just how long it takes to complete a king size quilt.  The finish piece is 6 feet by 6 feet  (1.83 x 1.83 meters).  Also, I did take some time off from quilting in the hottest months because it is just to much to be trying to quilt when it is so hot outside.

Another thing that delayed the quilting was that I developed a problem with my shoulder last year.  I think quilting may have been a part of the problem.  While quilting I had to hold my arm in a certain position for long periods of time.  My shoulder was stiff, then I tripped and fell.  Between the two, I have had a problem with my shoulder all year.  I went to physical therapy for three months.  It was just too painful to quilt for a while.  When I was able to start quilting again I had to limit myself to an hour a day.

The quilt was hand pieced and hand quilted.  The starts are pieced and the leaves were appliqued on solid blocks.  The quilting is fairly simple.  Most of it is straight lines.  The leaf blocks have a number of small quilted leaves surrounding the maple leaf. 

I am glad that I backed off my initial plan for quilting.  I had visions of all these wavy lines and fancy mandalas.  It just proved too complex in the long run, and it would have taken much longer to quilt.  It is just as well that I simplified things given the should problems that developed.  As I said to a group of my friends, "If I had known that this was going to be my Opus Magnum of hand quilting, I would have chosen a different quilt pattern."   

This quilt will probably be the last quilt where I do the quilting by hand.  I may be hand piece the blocks, but I expect that I will do the quilting by machine.  At least I say that now.  Who knows, given some time, I may want to quilt by hand again.  At the moment, I am ready to let that go. 

However, another project is completed.  I feel the need to give myself a pat on the back for sticking with it despite all the obstacles.  When I first started making projects there were a lot of UFOs (unfinished objects).  It took me a while to learn to stick with it long enough to make something worthwhile.  I hope that anyone reading the blog will be inspired to stick with a project when they feel bogged down in it.

Check back next week for more on the denim project.