The Saga Of Ashley's Quilt

This is the saga of Ashley's quilt.  

It all started out with a note to my DIL, Heather, that I would be willing to make a quilt for one of her friends that doesn't quilt.  What happened was her friend that does quilt, Ashley, had me make one instead.  I'm not sure why Ashley requested this, but she did.  And the fear I have of "Will my work be good enough for her?" came into my head.

I received the fabric, patterns, batting and backing in June when my son, DIL , and grands came to visit.  Heather helped me decide which pattern to use. 

The patterns came from a book Ashley had, but I don't know which book.  And the pictures were black and white.  The pattern is called "golden strips" and was done in Kaffe Fassett fabrics. (Bet it was beautiful.)  So I used graph paper to help me figure out the strips.  

I had a Retreat in July and I got busy.  I got the strips or columns sewn together.

I started sewing the strips together and I didn't pin cause I thought I didn't need to. 

 WRONG!!!  

It was so wonky.  One of the friends at the Retreat, Vicki, does quilting as a business in the Kansas City area and advised me that there was no way to square up that quilt.  The only solution was to take it apart.  

Yes, I literally cried. 

SO over the Fall months I got all the stitching ripped out and had just strips again.  Had this been my own quilt I would have stuck it in a plastic bin and left it for a few years.  You know, how quilts have to be put in solitary confinement when they have been bad?

End of January I had another Retreat and I took it along.  This time I carefully pinned and pinned and pinned and pinned. Success! 

Nice and flat and not bending to the corner.

While sewing I started thinking about the next step, quilting.  I have another friend, Cindy,  that has a quilting business in this area and I asked her if she could quilt it as her machine has a stitch regulator.  She doesn't really like to do Pantos, so this was perfect.  She had time and I had came up with this quilting design while working on the quilt.  

It's kind of hard to see, but it's bicycle wheels with "dust" between each wheel. So it's done.

Binding is on and it's at the finish line!  Woo Hoo!

It's scheduled for delivery this coming weekend.  Hope Ashley likes it.