Long Trip {a completed quilt!}

Completed Projects 2013Quilts

Nov 7

Introducing "Long Trip"....

As I shared in my last post, this quilt has been sitting partially finished in my quilt cabinet for about 8 1/2 years! I know that seems crazy, but here's the story.

I started this quilt right after my husband and I lost our first baby. After trying for a couple of years to get pregnant and then announcing the news to our friends and family and even to the point of wearing maternity clothes, our loss was devastating. One of the ways I found to cope was to make myself busy piecing together this quilt top. I have said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, but quilting is my therapy. When I'm stressed or overly anxious about all that life brings my way, sewing always calms me down.

After I had completed the top, I went to start quilting it on my Bernina. This is a large quilt and I quickly became very frustrated with my not-so-straight lines and then turned the quilt over to see creases and puckers in the backing!! I thought it looked absolutely horrible and just couldn't bring myself to unpick it. So instead I folded it up and put it away.

Thankfully not long after this quilt top was done God blessed us with our son. Life of course became very busy and when I got back to quilting I had moved on to other projects. I've never forgotten about this quilt and have pulled it out to admire it a number of times, but I just wasn't ready to finish it...until now.

When I pulled it back out this week and then looked over my "horrible" quilting, I realized that it wasn't nearly as bad as I had originally thought. In fact, I wasn't going to unpick ANY of those stitches. Yes, there are still puckers and creases, but they are on the back and I just don't care about them any longer. This quilt is never going into a competition to be judged and will stay at home to be loved by me, so a few puckers won't hurt a bit ;-)

As I sat down to finish the quilting I was able to take some time and remember our sweet angel who is waiting to greet us in heaven. Tears came back to me but this time the tears were not of devastation. They were tears of thankfulness and joy for all that God has given me in the last 8 1/2 years. It's always hard during those difficult times to see the good, but looking back it is there.

Originally I had planned to cross-hatch quilt this, but have now decided that straight lines in one direction looks great...and done is good!

I purchased this Trip Around the World quilt as a kit produced by RJR fabrics. It is a reproduction from the original quilt made by Laura May Clarke in 1932 and is now in the Michigan State University Museum. Can you imagine hand piecing and quilting the 2245 1 1/2" squares that are in this quilt?! I'm pretty sure 8 years would have been fast if that were the case!

I want to say a special thank you to my friend Michelle who helped me take these photos today during our lunch break at the Indiana War Memorial. It was so windy that we struggled, but had a lot of laughs in the process! It's nice to be work across the street from such a beautiful building to use as a backdrop.