At the end of October, I finished assembling all the Deco Garden blocks into one, big, humungous top.   Holy moley, this thing is BIG.  I intentionally made it a king sized top so I could use it on our bed but seeing 108"x108" on paper and seeing a 108"x108" top hanging up is mind-boggling.

I have a spot on one of our fences to hang my tops/quilts for photo ops.  It's typically in the shade, which is good for picture taking.  Unfortunately, this privacy fence just is NOT tall enough to allow this top to hang its full length ... so you can't see the bottom border.  Trust me, it's the same as the top border.  :-)

When I started this project in June 2018, I bought an entire bolt of Moda Marbles in black for the background blocks and sashing.  Because I was substantially increasing the size of the final quilt, I had absolutely NO idea if even one bolt would be enough.  I crossed my fingers and hoped.  When I finished the last block and had sewn on the last sashing, I had exactly 21" left of the bolt.  Whew.

But maybe not enough ... I still haven't calculated if that's enough to make the binding.  <worried look>  However, I'm not as concerned about the binding as I was about having the same fabric for the block background & sashings.

So, this top is now done.  It's folded up and hanging in the closet with all the OTHER tops that are waiting their turn to be quilted.  It's gonna be a while because a king sized top is just a whole lotta real estate.   (ahem: I have at least 2 other king sized tops waiting, too).

"It's folded up and hanging in the closet with all the OTHER tops .... "

I have a mental image of your closet full of quilt tops resembling that scene at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" ... you know, the scene where a government employee is storing the Ark of the Covenant. 

What a dreadful fate for such an awesome quilt top. 

Playing catch up after my long road trip from CA to OH. But oh what a fun trip.  These are three smaller quilt for my Project Linus sewing group.  My UFO's are finally getting to a manageable pile.  Working really hard at finishing stuff, so I can start the New Year - well NEW..

 I have one more to quilt. AND I made myself a little thing to help. I saw this on either the Quilting Board, or one of the cazillion FB quilting sites I like.  Just PVC pipe.  Sides are 5' in length, top bar is about 4',  and each foot is 1' on each side of the connector, for a total of 2' braces.  I used elastic and some of my basting clamps. Works great to keep the weight from being an issue.  IF you were going to have a longer upper bar I'd go with a much heavier grade of PVC.  The Top bar is not glued so I can take it apart for storage. I'm proud of my little setup. 

and I'm also crocheting some heavy potholders for my Quilt of Valor group as Christmas presents.  

judyinohio said:

What a dreadful fate for such an awesome quilt top. 

You're not far from wrong with that photo. :-)

But, there is a method in my madness.

Originally, (prior to 2017) I was obsessively working on my UFOs.  I have boxes of them and was systematically going through them.  Some, I decided, no longer "sparked joy" in me and they were disassembled with yardage being returned to the inventory stash or blocks being donated.  The ones that I still had interest in, were worked on and slowly the UFO boxes were being emptied.  I was proceeding at a very nice rate and feeling rather pleased with myself.  I figured that my girls would know what to do with completed tops ("quilting by check") but they wouldn't have a clue what to do with any of my UFOs.  It was my goal to finish up the UFOs so there was no backlog.  It was important to me to do this.

AND THEN .... for whatever reason, I don't quite remember ... in 2017, I got a bee up my bonnet and all of a sudden I felt an irresistible urge to work in my family heritage scrapbook photo albums.  I am the de facto family historian.  I have collected all the photos, newspaper clippings, memorabilia with the firm intent of creating albums for posterity.  My hope was that our girls would appreciate them; failing that, perhaps one of my nieces or nephews would.    It was darn near a compulsion to work on these albums.

I realized that the *quilts* and UFOs could always be completed by some other knowledgeable quilter but the knowledge that I have amassed over these past decades is irreplaceable.  If I don't get that information out of my head and into permanent form, it will get lost forever.  There is no one else in the family who is as nuts about genealogy a I am and no one would really be interested in tracking down photographs for identification and certainly no one would be interested in preserving them in albums.

Since 2017 then, that is what I have been focusing virtually *all* of my time and energy on.  I have been somewhat amazed that even the small family lines turned out to have substantial albums, simply because I kept digging around online resources to find information to make the album interesting to read.  I have been gratified to realize that I have completed albums for seven family lines, my Dad's military album, and made slipcovers for vintage albums that were fragile.  The original, vintage photos  and newspaper clippings are now safely preserved in my albums along with as much documentation that I could remember and/or discover.  I am rapidly approaching my "500 lb" and "800 lb" gorilla family lines .. the ones for which I have many, many photos & documentation and which I have been putting off because I've been terrified of starting them.  But with now having successfully completed seven family albums, I am not quite as scared of the gorillas as I once was.  :-)

All of the above to explain WHY the Deco Garden top has been filed away with all the other tops.  It's not that those tops are unimportant or that I am not interested in quilting them.  Quite the contrary.  It's just this family history has a higher place on the totem pole.  **At some point**  (although Mr Pirate flatly disbelieves it), this family history album project will be finished.  At that point, I can return to my creative love, quilting.

Addendum: I had been feeling frustrated because my paper crafting room is adjacent to my sewing room.  I constantly hear my quilting calling to me.  I could not figure out a way to multi-task both paper crafting and quilting; they remain mutually exclusive.  And then I thought .. ah ha! .. schedule a day a week for quilting and in that manner, I could satisfy both itches!  Sounded brilliant!  But the execution of that plan failed dismally.  I discovered that once I was "on a roll" with the scrapbooking, I didn't want to give up the momentum.  Ditto with the day of quilting ... I'd be just about to finish a section/unit/whatever and it was time to pack it in for the day.  I'd lose my momentum on it.   So, I am back to concentrating on the scrapbook albums.  But I do keep up my Forever Projects ™ because I need handwork to do when we go on road trips or when I join Mr. Pirate for TV shows in the evening.

 

What darling little PL quilts!  They will certainly appreciate them.  That sure is a clever idea for taking the weight off your quilt while at the machine.  Good idea!  I can't tell from the photo, but what kind of sewing machine do you have?  I only sew on an old vintage Singer and just love it.

Pirate (PIRATE_SR) said:

It's just this family history has a higher place on the totem pole.

Okay, I'll buy that bit of logic.

Just don't go into withdrawal once you have finally finished the last family history album and sit sobbing in a corner, unable to function.

Good one Judy!

Those are darling quilts!  I hope to start back to making Project Linus quilts after the new year.  Right now I'm finishing up a baby quilt then I need to make three Christmas stockings to replace the ones DD and her family lost in the flooding from Hurricane Dorian.

It is georgous! 

I have heard those hanging things are great for sit down quilting. Looks like you got a lot done.