I never photographed the quilt, hanging up, in it’s full glory. And, since I gifted it, I can’t do it now. Oh well.

I started this quilt back in 2011. Knitty D and I picked the same pattern, but she, smart girl, picked the smaller size, and she, after basting, did what she knew – straight line quilting. Me, nah. I had one baby quilt under my belt at this point, and I was ready for free motion quilting. Not that I knew how to drop my feed dogs. Not that I knew how to get the darning foot on the machine. Not that I had any quilting gloves. Nevermind all that, I figured – I was just going to go for it, and figure it out as I went along.

So, I went to Knitty D’s and we had a basting party.

Looks good, doesn’t it? But, the disaster, like a virus, had already taken hold. I decided to spray baste, and I didn’t use very many pins.

Mistake.

When I took it home to quilt, I watched my youtube videos about setting up my machine for free motion quilting. I said to myself, got it, easy peasy.

Wrong.

So wrong.

It was really hard – I was pushing, and pulling the quilt through the machine. It was like a prize fight. And then, I took a look at the back of the quilt. Horrors! The spray baste had come apart, and the quilt had folded back on itself. I had sewn so many overlapping circles and twists and things that were supposed to be stippling, there was no way I was ever going to be able to rip it out. Well, at least that’s what I thought at the time. Thinking back now, I probably could have, with a little patience. But, patience is not one of my strong points. So, I decided to just cut the border off.

And, in a scissor frenzy, my Piano Keys border was gone, and I was just left with a center with a raggedy edge.

I was depressed. I put it away.

For two years.

And then finally, I pulled it out again. I straightened up the edge, and just decided to finish it.

Luckily, the return of my Piano Keys mojo corresponded with my mom’s birthday. I would have preferred to give her something closer to perfect, but I did work hard on it, even if my efforts were often counterproductive. And, the fabric, in another happy coincidence, was in her colors.  So, I finished it up, bound it, and wrapped it.

And her she is, totally stunned at my talent!

She really was pleased as punch. And, she didn’t care it didn’t have a border. Nor did she care that the back of the quilt showed all of my boo boos, where the bobbin got jammed up, or my tension was screwed up, or I quilted in the same place 100 times and made a big brown blob.

She just loved it because it was from me. And I made it.

And that’s what quilting with love is all about, right?

Thanks for stopping by!