Thoroughly Modern Lily

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature. ―Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

The photos aren't perfect. I think I had a smudge on my lens. But here is the my Thoroughly Modern Lily quilt finished and hung in the customary quilt photographing spot. Pattern available here.

I worked on a name for this quilt, but nothing seemed to fit. So, I called it what P. called it, Thoroughly Modern Lily, after her Grandma Lillian whose quilt top inspired her. I kept P. in the loop via e-mail while I worked on this quilt. Only after I sent her this photo did I realize that I left a very important bit of information off the quilt label. I didn't mention my inspiration. But I'll mention it here. Thank you, P., for sharing your creative genius. You do beautiful things with fabric!

It was already past dark on the day I took this quilt to my friend, Eloise. We kept missing each other's phone calls and I finally caught her at home. It's been more than a month since I gave it to her, but I called yer yesterday to see if I could stop by and snap a few quick photos. Thanks to LadyBug for the assist. {BTW, she's 13 now and might have finally hit a growth spurt. She's getting pretty tall. I can't believe how grown up she is getting.}

Here's an artsy smartsy shot. I have to say, though, photos just don't quite do quilts justice at all. When Eloise pulled the quilt out yesterday, I was slightly surprised by how awesome it is {if I do say so myself}. If you look at it just right, you can see a sub-pattern of large circles formed by two of the lily petals in each of four adjoining blocks.

And, a snap of the quilt back. I used the same blue on the back as I did for the background on the front; a piece of Kona that I bought for another quilt, but ended up not liking it for that. That quilt was my first quilt made entirely from stash because I had a rather large piece of Kona in another color that I liked better for the back of it. The lily quilt is my second quilt made entirely from stash. I think I used 12 or 13 different colors of thread, and I really like how it looks from the back.

One final, gratuitous quilt shot.

This quilt took me six months, start to finish. I started it right after I finished the triangle quilt in October and it is the only project I worked on during that time. As soon as the Lily quilt was done, which was at the beginning of April, I started my next quilt. But Grace took two weeks off for a spa retreat. Her tension issues were making me tense, so I told her not to come back until she was all sorted out. She took her sweet time but when she did get back, she was ready to get down to business. She makes a beautiful stitch now and my next quilt top is finished. I used stash for everything but the background and back. I even pieced the batting to use up some of the smaller pieces I have on hand. I'm anxious to start the quilting now. If only quilts would baste themselves . . .

The End of the Line

“I've come so far short in so many things. I haven't done what I meant to do when I began ... I haven't lived up to my ideals.”

“None of us ever do,” said Mrs. Allan with a sigh. “But then, Anne, you know what Lowell says, ‘Not failure but low aim is crime.’ We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great. Hold fast to your ideals, Anne.” –Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

My dad keeps telling me I should put up one final post that says, “It's dead, Jim.” He's a funny guy, my dad.

Both blogging and sewing have had to take a back seat, but I'm not done with either of those things yet. It might be a bit of a snooze-fest around here — I started this post almost 2 months ago and am just now getting back it to it. The pictures were all edited and everything, so the hard part was done. All I had to do was add the witty commentary. Wait. Maybe the hard part wasn't done. Anyway I'm still sewing, even if it is just 15 minutes before bed, and still want to show what I'm working on.

While it is not the end of the line for my little blog, I did finish off this spool of 1300 meters {that's 1420 yards for those of us still using Imperial measurements} of AURIfil 50wt thread. Of course, I didn't use up that whole 1420 yards in just this one project. I've used it in a number of projects, but it is pretty cool to think that sometime I've sewn at least 710 yards {because, you know, half of that goes in the bobbin}. I'm sure more yards than that are run in the average football game. And it doesn't sound so impressive when you convert it to miles and find out that you can't even get to the gas station in 710 yards. But still, 710 yards. One stitch at a time.

A while back, the lovely and talented P. over at The Way I Sew It found a quilt top that her grandmother had made. She puttered around with it and collaborated with Sandi at Piecemeal Quilts to put together a pattern for it. Once that was complete, she took apart her grandmother's quilt top and remade it as a wonderful keepsake.

I loved the fun design, and ordered the pattern right away. Sidebar: it is currently available for free here. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but as ideas sometimes do, it went on the back burner. I have this sweet friend in my neighborhood that I've gotten to know pretty well in the last five years or so, and wanted to do something nice for her birthday. So, I started playing around with colors.

I designed around a piece of blue Kona {I can't remember the name of it for sure, I think it might be Rain} that I bought to go on the back of the triangle quilt, Friendship Garden. It just didn't work on that quilt, but I wanted to try and make it work on this one.

I also had a piece of Kona in Snow, left from Christine's Flower Garden. My first thought was to use the blue as the centers of the flowers and the sashings and the white as the background, but it worked better the other way around.

I started with the easiest bit of quilting first. I did the stitching in the ditch and the meander in the background. Then I decided I wanted some straight lines, but I wanted it to be as easy as possible. Marking with tape is such a hassle and if you use a washable marker, you have to wash the quilt before you give it away. While I do love a soft, crinkly, washed quilt, I also love how a quilt looks after it is freshly quilted. So, I used a Hera Marker to score lines into the fabric. Actually, I started out using the back side of a 99₵ seam ripper to make the markings, and eventually bought a Hera marker. I did everything free-motion and backtracked in the seam allowances, completing each flower without stopping. It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but it was good practice.

To balance out all of the geometric quilting, I put some swirls in the lily petals.

I kind of like how it is coming along.

Here's a close-up of the quilting on the lilies.

The quilt is finished, and I've already taken it to my friend. It was supposed to be for her birthday, which was December 24^th, but I was a little late getting it to her. Like, four-ish months late. I've got photos, but they need editing, so we'll end on a cliff hanger. I'm hoping to finish this story off a little faster than I got it started. In the meantime, you can see what I'm up to on Instagram.