Reflections on the Third Week of Fall

      Over the last ten months, friends and relatives have asked, “Will you finish the quilt in time for your daughter's wedding?” Planning, buying, cutting, and sorting pieces for the quilt flowed smoothly. In January I said, “Of course, I'll finish in time.”

      Sewing sixteen different squares, rectangles, and strips into a stain glass block exactly 16 ½ inches wide was my first hurdle. Meticulous measuring, ripping, re-sewing and cheering-on from my friend Cindy brought success for creating forty-two such blocks. In April I said, “I can finish in time.”

      After sewing the blocks into seven rows, I placed one on the cutting board at a Mother's Day quilt retreat. With rotary cutter in hand, I stared at the blue, green, and purple row–too terrified to trim the edges. I felt like a protagonist who surmounted one complication only to meet another. Marcia, an experienced quilter, sensed my hesitation and said, “I can help.” I let her trim all seven rows. With the trimmed rows ready I said, “I might finish in time.”

      Most quilters in my guild would have sewed the rows together and paid someone to do the quilting on a professional machine–definitely finishing in time. But I was determined to sew every stitch. The question was would even one row would fit in my small portable sewing machine? I stitched pillow covers between muslin to make a test row.       That fit so Spence helped me layer backing, batting, and a row of stain glass blocks to make a quilt sandwich. I quilted–stitch in the ditch around sashes, Irish knots in squares, and Irish chains in rectangles. On September 27, two weeks before the celebration, I'd finished quilting all seven rows and said, “I probably won't finish in time, but I'm going to hustle anyway.”

      As I puzzled out how to attach one row securely to another while keeping the vertical lines straight, I abandoned the beans in the garden and settled for enjoying golden leaves against the bright blue sky through the window. After 328 hours of sewing, I left the quilt (with four of seven rows attached) on the sewing table, packed my bags for the trip, and said, “I didn't finish in time for the ceremony, but I will finish in the time it takes to meet my daughter's only requirement– 'Make a quilt you'll be proud of.'”