Interlude

While I was working on "Traveling Stars," I was also working on the quilt top for my husband's and my bed.   I don't know why but I simply cannot do one project at a time.  Perhaps boredom?  Perhaps excitement?  Or both.  At any rate, while finishing up "Traveling Stars," I began piecing "Interlude."  As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to incorporate themes and colors my husband and I loved with themes and colors my son (in Heaven) had loved.  Themes were easy: stars and ducks.  Colors were not so easy to determine initially until I found a "cheater panel" with a duck on it that I liked.  I liked the country look and color scheme a lot and as it happened, it matched the colors in our bedroom perfectly so I was very excited to begin.  

I did not think a quilt full of small stars was the look I wanted on a king-sized bed so I made a gigantic star instead using the duck panel as the centerpiece.  This large block is 48"x48".  I did not have a pattern for the quilt I was making or even a clear and concise idea of what the finished quilt was going to look like.  I simply put this huge block together and let the rest of the designs for blocks fall into place as I went.  That is the quick way of saying that this quilt top made numerous trips from studio to bedroom in order to test out designs and colors.   And I must have called my husband into look and help me decide on every aspect of this quilt a hundred times. 

This is how it all came out.

"Interlude" ended up being an oversized king measuring 118"x108".  That measurement does not include the attached dust ruffle which was something I knew I was going to have on this quilt.  It took roughly two months to finish this quilt but as we were so excited to use it, we had it on our bed just after I had finished all the straight stitching I had planned to do on it.  

Piecing this top without a solid plan or a pattern required a lot of math work and some drafting of pattern pieces.  It stretched my sewing skills having to sew Y seams as well.  And again, there were several bo boos in this top but not to the degree of "Traveling Stars."  I could see much improvement moving from one quilt to the next both in piecing and in quilting.  I used my free motion foot for quilting this almost exclusively after some very quick and simple basting stitching.  I was determined to practice and I had a large canvass for which to practice on.  Too large in some instances.  It was both fun and frustrating to quilt this on a domestic sewing machine, but again, where there's a will, there's a way.  That said, I probably won't do another gigantic quilt any time soon.  

What I love so much about this quilt is that it is unique to us and our preferences.  That is what I have come to love so much about quilting.  I can make something unique to the person, whether myself or someone else.  It is a definite labor of love.

I named this quilt "Interlude" to mark the pause in time that occurs when a loved one is waiting in Heaven and another is waiting on earth to be reunited with them.  My son is always near to my heart and not a day goes by that I don't hope the interlude will be shorter than it feels.