purple

I made a quilt! This doesn't happen often, I know. It helps to have external motivation. In this case, the quilt is a retirement gift for a special, beloved teacher who happens to really, really love the color purple.

My kids are holding it up in the picture below. Finished size is about 48"x60" or so.

 As is common with me, I didn't use a pattern. I just made large 9-patch blocks (12"x12" finished size) with 2" sashing in between and a simple, narrow border with mitered corners.

The whole thing went together in about 2 days - cutting, piecing, sewing on a soft backing - until I tried finishing the binding by machine. That looked terrible, so I spent a week picking it out and then tacking it down by hand. 

I'm trying to improve my mitered corners. Out of the four corners, one I absolutely butchered. I'm not sure what went wrong. The other three look pretty good.

I so admire quilts with intricate piecing and strong style. One of these days, I'll make a quilt like that. For now, I seem to be able only to manage quilting projects that I can get done really quickly without following instructions. When it comes to knitting, I can handle all kinds of complexity, but not with quilting. Ah, well. One thing at a time.