Lovely Year of Finishes: February Finish

I'm a "to do" list kind of girl. Nothing gives me more pleasure than marking something off my list as DONE. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying participating in a Lovely Year of Finishes so much. This is only my first month in, and I'm pleased to report that my project for February is complete. Here's where this project started at the beginning of the month: a "finished" quilt without one stitch of quilting on it.

How can that be?

It's bright enough, pretty enough, but no texture at all. It's just ho-hum.

The actual quilting of any project is an intense process for me. I think that's because it's the step where I feel the most insecure. That's one great thing about the Lovely Year of Finishes; once I commit, it's a done deal. So, for this quilt, it was fairly easy to decide what to do with the centers...flowers...flowers like I learned to make in the Craftsy Quilting Negative Spaces class.

Because this project doesn't really have negative space, the flower adds more texture than floral appeal. It shows up best on the darker hexagons. I used a lime variegated thread for all of the flowers. They just sort of blend in on the rest of the hexagons.

The header of the quilt is quilted in pebbles. I'm becoming a big fan of pebble quilting. It's fun and fast.

The hardest part was deciding what to do in the borders around each hexagon. At first, I thought I'd just make each flower bigger and have it flow into the border. I tried it on one and decided against that very quickly. It was not a cohesive or pretty look. No, not straight lines, not pebbles, not flowers...finally I settled on a loop design, that probably has an official name, but I don't know what it is called. It makes me think of fish bones.

First, I quilted all the blue borders because the design shows there the least and I needed all the practice I could get. Then I did the orange, then the green. It wasn't until they were all done that I started feeling okay about the whole thing. Maybe I lack the vision to see the finished quilt, but it never looks good to me in the half way stage. That doesn't slow me down, though.

Once I have decided what I'm going to do, that's when the intense part kicks into high gear. It has to be done, and it has to be done NOW. Which is, of course, the same moment my younger children decide that we haven't had enough family time and everyone should pick their favorite game or activity so we can spend the whole day together. On the outside I smile and say, "That's a great idea!" On the inside I'm saying, "Can't you hear that quilt calling me? I can't just leave it up there like that!" My sanity compromise was to add that we would take breaks between each activity, you know, so we wouldn't all get worn out too quickly. I stitched like a mad woman on every break, so the quilt got done, and the family stayed happily intact. Whew.

I'm already poking around my unfinished projects to see what might be a good choice for March. Thanks, Lovely Year of Finishes, for the motivation and camaraderie.