Project 52.1. The Enduring Friendship Big Block Quilt

Project 52.1

This is my year to complete all of my half-finished projects. The first one is a quilt for my friend Mary Flowers. I'd already made her a quilt -- primary colors with a red binding --a few years ago, but she wanted a second one.

 "The first one has to get washed once in a while," she said, "and, besides, Jennifer has two." 

Jennifer, being one of my own personal daughters, wasn't a convincing argument. However, the image of Mary, like Linus from the Charlie Brown comic strip, sitting beside the washing machine, sucking her thumb, waiting for her blanket to reappear, did convince me.

She was hoping for colors like rust, brown, aubergine, orange, gold:  the vibrancy of falling leaves. Those colors remind me of every boring antique quilt I've ever seen, and I can't stand the thought of working with them. I found a good substitute, though, in turquoise and tangerine.  That combination developed from the first fabric I chose for her, the birdhouses you see above.

This is the only fabric that appears twice in the quilt. That's because Mary has a number of vintage birdhouses ornamenting her lawn / garden in South Carolina.  Here are a few photos I took of them in the summer of 2011:

Every decision about the quilt emerged from that birdhouse fabric.  It allowed for turquoise, which allowed the peace sign fabric, which freed me to use any other color I wanted. The huge Jetson-looking tangerine blobs convinced me to make the entire quilt from 18" squares. I like those blobs very well and didn't want them to get lost in the trimming process.

I hand-quilted the piece with orange thread, and this afternoon I finished hand-sewing vintage binding onto it.  I was then going to write my name, the date, the location (information all quilters are encouraged to include), and care instructions on the back, but once I got started writing I couldn't stop until I'd gone around 2.5 times.

Then I traced around my left hand, because I love the shape of hands and also because Mary Flowers once told me she would recognize my hand if we were separated by fifty years and all she saw was one finger.  (Do you know what I call that?  I call that enduring friendship. And thus we have The Enduring Friendship Big Block Quilt.)

I still have to clip a few threads on the quilt and to take another photo that shows all twelve blocks.  I'll do the former tonight and the latter tomorrow, in the morning light, when I have time to figure out a way to display the entire piece on the gate.

Meanwhile, what did I notice in forcing Project 1 through to completion (and, trust me, it was a forced completion; yesterday I came up with a new idea; I had to remind myself I was determined to complete one project a week in 2012 that and I was rapidly running out of week)?

I noticed --that I like the look of handwriting around the inside borders of a quilt backed with white muslin.

--that I might enjoy making a quilt in which my printed words, in various colors, become the pattern.  That idea is a bit nerve-wracking; what would happen if after investing ten or twenty hours in writing I added something I didn't want to keep in the finished quilt?

--that sometimes I worry needlessly about silly things that are easily resolved once I get on with the project.

If you've completed a project this week, I'd love it if you leave a comment and a link. We can all enjoy this party!