A Finished Project

... so what next?

All week long ideas have percolated, bubbled up to the surface and then popped and disappeared before I have had a chance to write them down. I haven’t written a word all week and now it’s Saturday afternoon and I have a blank page that is supposed to be tomorrow’s Substack newsletter. It could be a short one.

To be fair the week didn’t get off to a great start when I received a phone call at 2.30 am to say Mum had fallen from bed, been found on the floor, her head was bleeding, and an ambulance was on its way. I drove over to A & E as dawn was breaking and found her semi-conscious on a trolley already having had one of many tests. It was a long day and Mum was very distressed but aside from needing the gash on her head glued together there was no other permanent damage from the fall. By the following day, still very drowsy from pain killers Mum didn’t really remember being in hospital or being ferried around in an ambulance but had a vague recollection of being somewhere with me and kept telling me “At least we had a nice day”. Mmm… not quite my recollection but once again I’m grateful that her dementia prevents her remembering all the unpleasant details.

But despite that and the lasting tiredness, this wasn’t what kept me from writing all week. Instead I have spent every spare moment at my sewing machine finishing off a quilt for my grandson. Back last May I wrote here about the first two blocks of a new quilt. Regular readers and people who know me well will know I am not a quilter. I like the idea of making quilts, but the reality is something else. But this one was destined to be something very special.

To quickly recap, approximately forty years ago, despite never having made a quilt in my life I bought a pattern for a ‘Transportation’ quilt. Ben, my little two year old at the time was obsessed with all types of vehicles, cars and driving. There were twenty different designs for twenty individual blocks featuring different modes of transport, that could be sewn together in a quilt as you go method. What on earth possessed me to think that I could sew this with a toddler and new baby in tow is beyond me. Of course I didn’t do it. The pattern got packed away in a box, it was shipped back with us to the UK, it moved house twice and periodically I would take it out and think about making it, until common sense got the better of me. There were another two babies by then.

Roll on forty years and last year the pattern was unearthed once more. Ben now in his forties has his own little vehicle obsessed son and I decided it was now or never, so I made the first two blocks: a tractor and a hot air balloon. Buoyed on by my success another four blocks were quickly made and I was on a roll until events with my Mum last summer took priority and once again the quilt was put on hold and forgotten about. Forgotten about until I had to move the basket holding all the fabrics because it was cluttering up the place where I was looking for something else. It’s a vicious cycle.

So with Christmas out of the way and my little grandson approaching his fifth birthday at the end of February I decided I needed to finish the quilt, but progress was inevitably slow. That is until this week. If you are reading this on Sunday then we are visiting my eldest son and his family today, so at the beginning of this week I knew I had just seven more days to get the quilt finished if it wasn’t going to hang around for another forty years, in which case someone else would undoubtedly need to finish it.

On Monday I appliqued the last six panels, a task I had been putting off because I knew I wanted to change some of the designs. On Tuesday I still had twelve applique blocks to quilt. By Wednesday I had to tack the wadding to the backing sheet, a task that involved several hours sitting, kneeling and crawling on the floor which was the only place big enough to spread it out. My hips and knees are still reminding me why this wasn’t such a great idea. And then Thursday and Friday the whole thing was put together, the edges were bound, and a label was put on the back.

The quilt is finished and ready to be delivered and my only hope now is that he likes it. It is far from perfect, it certainly wouldn’t win any prizes and please don’t tell the quilt police but there’s no doubt I have broken lots of quilting rules, but I’m delighted with how it has turned out. In particular I’m delighted that it looks reasonably rectangular and not noticeably bigger at one end than the other. Small wins! And despite it taking so long to make (and I’m not counting the first forty years) I have actually enjoyed the process and the planning out of the blocks, knowing it was going to be for my grandson. There was added satisfaction in knowing that I needed very few new materials to make it as all the fabrics for the applique came from my stash, including some reclaimed from old clothes and dress making projects. I had to buy some plain calico for the background of the blocks and a roll of wadding, but the backing fabric and sashing was cut from a couple of old navy blue sheets that came from my Mum’s house.

I designed a few new blocks to replace the original designs, a London bus and taxi to replace the yellow American versions and because my grandson loves monster trucks I replaced the design for a San Francisco trolley bus with a monster truck. I felt that the penny farthing was a little too old fashioned, and a motorbike was stitched instead although the old fashioned cowboy wagon remains one of my favourite blocks.

So what now? I have made it clear that the other five grandchildren will not be getting quilts any time soon and this was a special ‘one off’ because of the history behind it. So for now my sewing machine is going to be removed from the end of the kitchen table (it’s too cold out in my studio to sit and sew over the winter months) and I might even get to grips with our continued efforts to declutter. My houseplants need repotting, seeds need sewing, beds on the allotment need preparing, my studio needs clearing, there is an ever growing pile of mending and I have a new painting to start on which I am keen to get started. One thing is for certain, I’m not going to be short of things to do.

And if anyone else would like the pattern for this transport quilt I am more than happy to pass it on and will post it free of charge to any UK address. Just leave me a comment by hitting the button below or send me a message. Alternatively it will end up in my recycling bin by the end of the week because I am determined to declutter.