10 Years In The Making

I have a confession to make...I just now finished one of my Personal Progress goals. Here's the story: About 10 years ago, I was in Young Women's working on my goals, one of which was "Make a quilt." Sounds easy enough, right?! I had taken private sewing lessons and sewing classes in school...how hard could it be?! Well, I decided to piece a quilt - you know...small squares sewn together... My bed was queen-sized at the time, but I didn't think much of it. So I got started; selecting fabrics, cutting squares (by hand with scissors, not nifty rotary cutting tools), and stitching them together one by one. Well, it was taking forever...and I never finished! I think I somehow justified that I had spent so much time on it and was still "making a quilt" or maybe I hurried and substituted something easier in its place. I don't honestly remember. Well, I have carried the bag containing hundreds of little squares and one portion of an unfinished quilt around with me for 10 years now.

Last summer I decided to make a quilt for my then unborn child. I had never actually made a quilt and I decided this was the perfect reason. I was thinking about buying fabrics and getting started when I remembered the bag of pieces still waiting to be used. I decided to put them to use and make a quilt for Chris and voila:

Then, a couple months ago in Relief Society, they started talking about our stake being given an assignment that each ward needed to make 20 crib quilts to donate to the Humanitarian Aid Center in SLC. I once again remembered the unfinished quilt portion and the hundreds of squares that still remained even after making Christopher's quilt. I had to add a few rows and cut off some of the length. There were all sorts of annoying requirements (who woulda' thought they'd be so picky when asking for donations), one of which was tying with the international stitch which means that all your yarn remains inside the quilt as one long thread between stitches; you don't ever cut it. But I finally finished and once again, voila:

This is the international stitch - no ties allowed - apparently they come out too easily. It was really quite annoying to do, but it worked in the end.

There you have it: my first attempts at making quilts...and they only took me 10 years to finish (that's really sad, I know...I have a horrible habit of leaving things unfinished). And to my former YW leaders... I FINISHED MY GOAL!