Forever has Ended

Remember me talking about the Iris quilt?  This is an applique project that I started some time in 1991.  My family dubbed this the "Forever Quilt" because that is how long I've been working on it. My daughter, now 27, says she cannot remember a time that I haven't been working on this quilt. I haven't been working on this quilt continuously for the past 26 years.  There have been long stretches of time that it sat, tucked away in the closet because I was bored with it, or frustrated, or did not yet have the skills to go to the next step.  As of yesterday, it is complete!

It is hand appliqued, hand and machine stitched, hand quilted and measures just under 100" per side.. And I LOVE it.  But, I don't think I'll let a quilt take me this long to finish again.  I am much better at applique today than I was 26 years ago when I was just starting.  Looking at some of these blocks up close makes me cringe.

Because I have been focused on getting the Iris quilt done (Entitled "My Fantasy Garden"), I have not worked on other projects.  I wanted to be focused and complete this before I started working on other things.  I did one small knitting project between the time I finished the quilting and started the binding.

I wanted to knit a cap for myself and took a few days to knit this up.

I used double pointed needles because  I didn't want to spring for circulars to knit this, but I should have bought the circular needles in the correct size, too.  There were just a bit too many stitches on my DPNs and I dropped a few stitches before the cap was completed.  I found them and fixed the cap, but it would have been easier to just use the correct tools.

I also tackled an upholstery project in January.  This chair was a rescue from a client when we were doing the remodeling business.  The chair it replaced was in much worse shape and this chair has 'good bones'.  The plaid fabric we chose was not my first choice, but the $5.00/yard price tag for the plaid compared to the $25.00/yard for the print that I would have preferred made this an easy choice.  I had to buy extra to match the plaid and the process to do that took more time, but I'm happy to have spent $60 in total for the supplies to make this chair look much better.

Now that the Iris quilt is complete, I am moving onto all sorts of other projects.  But the next highest priority on my list is to get my craft/quilting closet cleaned out and organized.  I have started that and am working at it a little every day.  My plan is to have it complete by the end of February so it doesn't feel like an overwhelming task.