Wednesday, February 3, 2016

THE butterfly quilt

At last! My Tula butterfly quilt is actually done! The quilt was made and the binding half on a year ago as a gift to my dear friend Darci for her 40th birthday. Then I'm embarrassed to say it sat untouched until late last year. The prospect of stitching down all that binding just seemed too daunting. But then as her 41st birthday rapidly approached, I realized I needed to get it done.

And I did just that on Sunday. To say I am elated it is finally truly finished and ready to give away is an understatement. Sadly, the thrill was tempered by my inability to get a good photo of the whole quilt. It is next to impossible to do that on your own. So this is the best I have for now to document this monumental finish - spread on my dining room floor in the dim light of an impending rainstorm and a bump on my head after hitting a doorway edge while perched on a stepladder.

Here she is in all her glory!


As I stitched the binding, it was nice to get reaquainted with the quilt. I saw all the care I put into fussycutting the blocks. Not to mention all those damn curved seams that nearly killed me until I learned the magic way of sewing them. (Watch here and here.) Those curves and this quilt actually introduced me to my first good IG friend who kindly directed me to one of those videos. I think she sensed I was close to losing my mind while desperately using all the pins to sew those curves.


I wanted the quilt back to commemorate the big occassion, so I pieced a giant 40. And look at all those precious Tula raccoons! I could have retired on those!


This was the first quilt I took to a long-arm quilter and she did a lovely job. I picked one pattern for the main part of the quilt, and another for the top and bottom borders.


It's kinda hard to believe this is actually done. It was close to a full year of sewing, then close to a full year of procrastinating. And boy did it take organization to stay on top of all the cutting and blocks. I had lists and a bin of baggies marked with the blocks inside. My CDO found that very satisfying.

Hopefully I will be able to share better photos of this quilt some day. I didn't even bother getting out my real camera since the setting was so sub-par.



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