Roughing it

Two years ago my sister was visiting me and we decided to whip out a couple of quilts for her two little grandsons.  We finished one top and got halfway through the second but ran out of time.   The unfinished top had some tricky piecing, including a set-in curved seam, and I offered to keep it and finish it as soon as I came back from some extended vacations.  But no, she was in a hurry so she took it home with her.

And promptly misplaced it.  The first top got quilted up and given to the kid, but the second top had disappeared into limbo -- until late last month.  It resurfaced because my sister is moving, and she had finally gotten to the point where practically everything she owns is packed, and this bag of stuff was among the last to resurface.

So I was visiting her last week and she pulled out the quilt, in pieces.  If we finished the top posthaste, her longarm lady could get it quilted before moving day.

We were proud of this top -- we made log cabin squares with frogs in the center.  I had bought the frog fabric 20 years ago, knowing that it would come in handy sometime, and its time had definitely come.

Only problem was how many of the things you usually use to sew were already packed and gone.  I realize how spoiled I am with my studio -- not the greatest studio in the world, but it does have a big pool-table-sized work surface, and a design wall, and a big sewing surface surrounding my machine, and lots of cutting mats.  By contrast, last week we had a sewing machine, one cutting mat with heat ripples, a rotary cutter and an 18-inch ruler.

Trimming the top had to be done in sections as the whole thing wouldn't fit on our cutting table.  And we had to lay the quilt out on the floor.  Just the way I used to in the olden days before I discovered design walls.

But the tricky curved seams of the J went in beautifully, and the top went off to be quilted in a frog pattern.  High time we finished it, since there's now a third grandson on the way!