Dangling Strings

I made this lap quilt almost exactly 10 years ago during Thanksgiving weekend. It was a cold and snowy winter in Chicago (as it is pretty much every year). I had Thanksgiving dinner with my college buddy's family, but was otherwise alone all weekend. My family lived 2,000 miles away. I really wasn't up for shopping and definitely did not want to do homework. So what else does a master procrastinator do when final exams were looming a week away? This Sunbonnet Sue lap quilt was almost finished that long ago weekend. I say almost because I ran out of blue thread to applique around one of the Farmer Sam's foot and shirt and hat. But I basted it all together that weekend anyway. This is a close-up of one of the Sunbonnet Sues. Her dress is made from an old nightgown I wore when I was a child. Actually, almost all of the fabrics I used for this quilt were from childhood clothes. My mom used to sew my clothes when I was little. I was proud of my little accomplishment even though my stitches were uneven and my quilt had no filler, just a flannel backing. And I really have no idea why, when I eventually bought a thread pack that had several shades of blue thread, I never got around to finishing poor little Farmer Sam's foot. So I finally did. A decade later.

Another project that had languished for several years was the second quilt I ever made. This one featured a log cabin quilt pattern. It was started during a cold Christmas while I was at home with my parents. Hmm, I think there's definitely a link between winter and quilting. Because I'm getting the urge to do another quilt. The log cabin quilt took three days since I had my mom's sewing machine to speed things up.

First day was cutting each piece. I used leftover fabric from covering photo albums. Yes, my photo albums have nice fabric covers. There are 17 of these log cabin squares. I cheated and interspersed the blocks with regular non-pieced squares.

Second day was spent sewing each log cabin block. Each piece is stitched to the next, then ironed out flat, then sewn into the next. It's tedious work.

Third day, I sewed the whole thing together. As you can tell, my blocks don't quite line up. It's slightly smaller than a twin-size so it's a rather large lap quilt. I was cheap and also used very thin lining so it's a good thing it's really not large enough for coverage. But it had lining and a back (an old twin sheet). I stitched around each block so the whole quilt would hold together. Umm, but yeah, I got lazy again and stopped with the last two rows. So I finally, finally finished basting this quilt this weekend too.

I only procrastinated three years on this one though.

But tying up loose ends, even on something this silly, feels good.