The Quilt Begins

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I usually make a quilt for the new babies entering our family and for close friends, but as I have been told on many occasions I have never made a quilt for my daughter.  When she was little I saved many of her outfits for just the purpose of cutting them up and making a quilt for her – but 7 years have come and gone and the clothes still sit in the attic and the quilt still lives in my mind.

For me the worst part of making a quilt is cutting all the pieces and of course the larger the quilt the more pieces there are to cut.  The quilt I want to make for my daughter is queen size – so many, many pieces to cut.  Several years back I was leafing through a catalog and came across the perfect quilt pattern – I ripped the page out and put it into my binder with all the other patterns and ideas I have come across.  Every once and awhile I would look at the picture and tell myself that I needed to start the quilt, but that is about as far as it ever got – until now.  My daughter was away for the month of July – so up into the attic I went and down came the box of clothes.  A trip down memory lane followed and lasted for a long afternoon.  Pulling out each piece of clothing and remembering the pictures taken in them, the special occasions she wore them and of course – I can’t cut this up!

I pulled out the picture of the quilt that I had thought I would be making, but the quilt no longer seemed the “right” one to make with the treasure trove of clothes that I had collected.  Out came the quilt books and for several hours I went through the books – marking the pages of the maybes and then I went to the internet, again for several hours – but after all of that I did not find the “right” quilt pattern.  The next day it was off to the library, where for about an hour I sat on the floor in front on the bookshelf, pulling one quilt book out after another – but then there it was – the perfect, right quilt pattern!  So home I walked and the cutting began.

I had decided on the Lemoyne Star quilt pattern and now the cutting would begin.  I needed to cut 168 squares, 168 triangles and 336 diamonds – why did I choose this pattern? Oh, yeah I remember because it is the perfect, right quilt for Stella.  I cut the templates and then I cut the squares and then the triangles and now I needed to cut 336 diamonds.  I hate to iron, but I needed to iron the clothes in order to start cutting them, but of course we had a heat wave and I of course could not iron and heat up the house or myself – so there the clothes sat on the ironing board – reminding me several times a day that I still had 336 diamonds to cut and not much time left before my daughter was back home.

I made a schedule of how many diamonds I had to cut each night in order to get the cutting done and all the items back up in the attic.  Everything still just sat where I had put it a week ago, 2 weeks ago – time was running out – I needed to get cutting – the self inflicted guilt was building – I had to get this done.  Late in the afternoon I could hear the scissors calling me and the calling just kept getting louder and louder – I could not take it anymore – I started cutting and cutting and on that first night I had cut 96 squares – ok that was not so bad.  The next night I cut some more and after 4 more evenings all 336 diamonds had been cut.

Everything was put back in the attic – did not want any clues as to what I had been up to and the cut pieces are hidden in my bedroom.  Now in the evenings I will start sewing the quilt while Stella is sleeping and I hope procrastination does not take over.  I have until Christmas to get this done -since this will be her Christmas present from me.

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