This little baby quilt, dropped by the courier on Friday, was a quick finish as the quilt maker just requested an edge-to-edge design. Any quilt for a baby, toddler or even child needs no more than this. They see the picture and colours, don’t care about the quilting, and never use these for too long.
On the very first day of Wimbledon and during a Sinner match, a quilter phoned to ask if she could fetch her quilt. I had no problem, as this is usually a rather quick transaction. I, however, did not know she’d be bringing another huge quilt along, and this part takes time. I have to make sure that we are on the same page regarding what needs to be done.
This
completed top was inherited by a non-quilting daughter after her mom passed
away. She had no clue as to how it
should be finished. At a gathering, my
client met her, and they talked about hobbies. This is how she came to
hear the story.
My client
then helped her with batting and backing and gave me the quilt to finish. Knowing it is for a non-quilter, I did not
want to overwhelm her with dense custom quilting or the price thereof. I would have loved to do custom quilting, though. I settled for meandering with
the knowledge that she at least has a useable item to remember her mom by.
I ordered 34 frozen meals and soup to be delivered on Thursday. I basically spent most of my food budget on frozen food because Wimbledon starts tomorrow. I am an avid sports fan on TV, though I am not fit enough to do any of these myself. However, I take Wimbledon more seriously than any other sport, and I do become rather unsociable during this time. Don’t visit me, don’t invite me, just let me be.
With this
quilt being the last one I have with me currently, I am quietly hoping for a
break. We will have the little one
over, seeing as it is school holidays in South Africa, but she is now old enough to
understand.
I also
spent the morning cleaning all the surfaces in my house. The little robovac can do her thing at night, leaving me with just a little mopping to do and then Wimbledon is
all mine.
After the quilt maker and I decided on a motif, I laid the 3 layers out on top of each other to ensure I load the right sides and not end up with a backing shorter than the top. Before taking the top to the machine, I decided to quickly count the blocks across and down. It was 9 blocks across and 9 rows down as I used the sides to count.
After
loading all three layers onto the frame, I started quilting and thought it would be a quick job. Before
long, I was done with row 3, which, at that stage in my confused mathematical
frame of mind, was a third of the quilt done.
Not far to go.
I quilted,
advanced, quilted, advanced, and when I got to row 9, I still had almost three-quarters of the quilt on the roll, still to quilt. That’s when it hit me, these blocks were on
point. In between each of the 9 block
rows, there were still 8 additional rows with 8 blocks each. Talk about a
disappointment!
Finally
done, I could return it to the quilt maker.
This is from what I regard as my “kind quilter”. She tends to bring me a quilt just after I worked on an intricate custom quilt, and I really just need an easy motif to take a break.
She made
this for a dog lover and thus used dog prints in the quilt.
