Ripples

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. –Buddha

I am excited to share the finished Drunkard's Path quilt, which I finally decided to simply call Ripples. I love how it turned out.

This quilt has always been for my friend, Kim. From the moment I cut it out, I knew it was for her. In it's raw form, I knew it was for her. Sitting in a drawer for three years, it was always for her. When the timing was finally right, and especially in this layout, it is for her. When she opened it out, she said that these were the colors in her bedroom and that it was going on her bed.

But to be honest, if this quilt hadn't had someone else's name stitched into the back, I would have kept it for myself. While we're being honest, I'm still not sold on the name, Ripples. I almost called it Reaping {Galatians 6:7 — for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap}, but the layout and the colors and the theme all pointed me towards ripples on the water. And because I wasn't sure if the layout and name of the quilt quite conveyed the sentiment behind the quilt {because I know this wonderful woman sacrifices a lot to serve her family and so that her husband can serve others both in his work and his volunteer church assignment and I wanted to show my love and appreciation} I embroidered the Edward Markham poem around the edge of the label.

There is a destiny which makes us brothers;
None goes his way alone.
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

I knew it would be a big job, so I debated about leaving the poem off. I filled in the details first, and then showed Mr. Bug my template, with the poem around the outer edge. He said it looked cool and that I should do it. I used my tiniest embroidery needle, a size 12, and a single strand of floss. When I was finished, Mr. Bug was able to read it {although the lighting here makes it kind of hard; I did tweak the contrast a bit to hopefully make it easier to see} and I'm really glad I put it on.

I hadn't originally planned to put a border on this quilt. It should have finished at 56" x 56", but due to a little bit of shifting when I ran the fabrics through the Go! Cutter, I needed to square up all of my blocks. I only lost 2" total, but the quilt seemed a bit small so I improvised {not really my strong suit}. I didn't have enough left of either the tan or the off-white to make a complete stop border {and didn't really have the time to make a fabric store run}, so I used them both and threw in some of the chocolate brown at the corners for good measure. Mr. Bug, who I often use as a sounding board, wasn't sure about them. He said I should just do the dark brown border. I was almost convinced, but decided to leave the stop border in and am glad I did. I love to get Mr. Bug's opinion. I don't always go with his suggestions, but he helps me to figure out what I really want to do.

Sometimes, it takes a village to make a quilt. I want to thank everyone who left comments with opinions and encouragement as I worked through the assembly process {I'm so happy with the formerly-diagonal-vertically-striped-bias-binding!}. I appreciated the help and it meant a lot that you would take the time to leave a note for me! I'd also like to thank Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting for her quick needle. The quilting is amazing! And thanks to her, I was able to deliver the quilt to the birthday girl on her actual birthday.

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More about this quilt:
First layout and a call out for name suggestions
Backing selected
Allusion to working on the assembly
Ready to assemble and request for name suggestions
The complexities of stripey binding
Binding decided, lessons in quilting and a sneak peek of the finished quilting