Today was a day of celebration: after four years of on and off work, I pieced the last block of my quilt. Half the quilt top is sewn by hand because I do not have a machine in Germany. My hands were getting stiff working on it so I decided to bring it home and see if Mom could figure out how to make the small stitch I needed on her sewing machine. Then with a few lessons from my Aunt Connie and from Marilyn Carlson, I was able to leave the dark ages of quilting and join the new dawn – using a rotary cutter rather than shears, cutting in strips rather than one piece at a time, and chain sewing to speed things up. Mom and I developed a system and in one day of my cutting and pinning and her sewing, we finished 16 blocks. The next time we sewed, we made 9 and then I finished off the remaining blocks on my own. The pieced part of the quilt measures 91.5” x 58” with the equivalent of 77 blocks. Now we need to do the borders which will be long strips of the same fabric and a quick job to sew. I will not get the quilt finished this year. We can work on that the next time I am home. I think I will investigate letting someone else machine quilt it for me. Then Mom and I can do the binding.
