Coming of Age.....

....or the story of a quilt made twice !!

I have mentioned on other occassions that I am inclined to see a quilt and think 'I can make that !' only to find out later that I can't really!! This is the story of such an occassion that happened when I first decided to try my hand at making quilts some 3 years ago.



I saw this particular quilt in an Australian magazine , and it was so striking I decided to have a go so out came the Singer Starlet , the only machine I had at the time!

A nice reliable little workhorse that saw me through my first attempts at this craft even allowing for the fact that she must be over 30 years old (if not more!) as I have owned her for 26 years and I am her third owner - still going strong I might add, if a little noisey !!

Together we stitched the necessary sections ready to put together for the finished block - then disaster!! In my ignorance (!!) I had photocopied the template and omitted to verify the size which was smaller than the original, so the overall pattern was lost!! After kicking myself, I then did what I think maybe most would have done - put it in a drawer and forgot about it ! I couldn't let it go though as I had really fallen for the pattern, so some months later I got it out, unpicked (yes!!) every section, redrafted the template correctly and reused where possible the bulk of the fabric and remade the flimsy! This time it worked, but I was faced with a second problem - what to do with all those white areas ? That I can't hand quilt has already been established and until recently haven't had the bottle to try FMQ, so back into the drawer it went!!

This week, I steeled myself to finish the quilt and today put the last stitches into the binding, and now that it is finished at last I am just so glad that I did perservere as it was worth the effort! Voila - my Spider's Web !!

Not perfect by any means, but to me its great !! My oldest UFO finished at last !!

Just before I go, a line about my posting yesterday and the comment left by Touring in Brittany. In case anyone is wondering, I should explain that in Brittany many people still speak the original Gallic language or 'patois'. In our little village alone the language spoken amongst our older neighbours is Breton ,although when they are in 'mixed' company French is the order of the day. During 1914-1918 Breton would have been the language of the men going to war. At this time the Province was still a bit of 'the poor relation' in France , somewhat isolated from the rest of the country , and French had not yet been adopted as the official language .

Brittany is extremely proud of its Gallic roots and this is apparent throughout the Province in many shapes and forms.