Well, I had plans for a much grander finish to 2013 but I’ll have to settle for this small quilt.  I started sewing this at least 2 years ago – I know that because I can remember sitting at my sewing machine in my old apartment sewing up the blocks, listening to the country music being piped in by my oh-so-annoying neighbor and thinking “I have GOT to move”.  I can’t remember the line of fabric, but I know I bought it at a now-closed quilt store in Attleboro, after stopping by one summer Friday afternoon on my way home from Providence.  And I know it was a “layer cake” – a package of ~40, 10″ squares from a line of fabric, which you then cut up and sew.  I know I didn’t love the fabric, but it was on sale and I was looking for an easy project.  (Pattern is “Stepping Stones” by Mary’s Cottage Quilts.)

Truthfully, it was easy enough to sew.  The problem was that, well, I didn’t love the fabric.  And once I got the top done, it wasn’t quite big enough and I didn’t know what to do.  I needed border fabric, but couldn’t find any fabric in the same line to match, and nothing else I found really fit either.  Finally I gave up and found some solid green in my stash that more-or-less matched and said, “good enough”.  Never let perfect be the enemy of good.

And then I just decided to machine quilt the thing, very minimally and very simply – partly because I am not a machine quilter and partly because I was gunning for DONE.  And then I threw the thing in the washer and dryer, which makes it soft and crinkly and looks juuuuust enough weathered.

It’s not very big – enough to curl up on the couch with, but definitely not a bed-sized quilt.

As per usual the photo shoot help arrived just in the nick of time, unbidden and from corners of the apartment unknown.  I caught her mid-yawn, which always cracks me up because she looks like she’s laughing at me.  Which, y’know, is what I suspect she is doing a good portion of the time…

Happy 2014!