Merideth's Quilt

Ta-da!
The quilt for Merideth’s shadow box is done! I really can’t express what a great feeling this is. I started it in August but quickly lost enthusiasm when I ran into several obstacles. As a novice quilter, I made several errors like calculating the size for the blocks and how many I needed. I had to take some apart that came out crooked, and some of them were still lopsided. But what really deterred me was that once I had finished the blocks, I realized that that in order to sew them in the seam I would lose another ¼ inch around it still, which would make them about ¾ inch. The blocks are so small you can’t even recognize the pattern in the fabrics to know that the pink one is cute little hearts. I don’t remember now exactly how I planned to lay them out, but they were definitely smaller than I wanted. The obvious solution seemed to be to start over and make the squares bigger. That’s where I really lost my enthusiasm. Then life got busy, months passed, and the idea of getting everything out to figure out how to fix it really seemed overwhelming.

I finally pulled it out again last week and tried to figure out what I wanted to do. Even if I did make bigger blocks, I couldn’t think how to arrange it for the look I wanted. I had originally made 16 quilt squares, but I was beginning to realize that there wouldn’t be enough room to show much of the “sweetheart” fabric, which is really what I wanted. After getting frustrated some more, I was ready to forget the idea of using pieced blocks at all and decided I would just make a few simple solid squares and call it good.

In the midst of this Aaron came along. He convinced me that the blocks I had already sewn were not too crooked, small or fragile from handling to work with and that I should just keep going with what I had already worked on so hard. We stayed up until midnight discussing the layout and what the next step was and how wide to make it. The next morning he jumped right in taking care of measurements for the sashing to connect it together, since the thinking part is what was holding me back. Suddenly the little squares were beginning to look like a quilt.

What has been hovering on my mind for months took shape in just a few hours. I am still amazed that once we focused on it, it came together so quickly. I’ll tell you right now that there are lots of mistakes, some that are amplified by virtue of sewing on such a small scale, but is it an absolute miracle to me to have it done. I could not have done it without Aaron’s encouragement or support. Tune in soon (that's a loose term--don't hold me to it) to see the completed shadow box!