I finished this quilt in May but just got around to taking pictures yesterday, for some reason. My new Canon is awesome but if I don’t use it for a week or so I forget everything I’ve already learned and have to start from scratch. Hopefully while we’re on vacation in two weeks I’ll get the basics committed to memory and experiment with the fancier stuff.
I got most of the Punctuation by American Jane through a Stitch Steals deal last summer, including the alphabet panel. I decided this would be a retirement from teaching gift for myself. I saw a similar layout in a Connecting Threads catalog about the same time that used a main panel for a baby quilt. How hard could that be?
I had to sweep out the cobwebs from the math room in my brain and use a calculator but I was able to work out the border sizes without too much trouble. The backing used up most everything I had left. This photo shows the cute label by daughter designed for me and gave me for my birthday.
I really wanted to experiment with different quilting designs, ala Angela Waters, my quilting hero. I used the lines of the chalkboard for straight-line quilting on the front panel and a wavier line in the blue borders. My attempt at free-motion quilting in the half-square triangles was a DISASTER! I hated it! I spent a good four hours ripping that out and decided to try the big stitch hand quilting I learned from a class at Harper’s.
Ahhh! Much better! I even remembered to sew a hanging sleeve when I put on the binding. Now I just need to buy a dowel so I can hang in in my sewing room and look at it every day.
Pearlie's Girl 