Festival Finish

I finished my Festival challenge quilt, but after so many requests I thought I'd let you know just what a monumental effort it was to finish it. It probably didn't help that I started piecing it on the Sunday of the delivery week! Ooops!

I had a customer quilt loaded that needed to be done by Wednesday, quilting group on the Monday afternoon (precious hanging sleeve stitching time for the other quilts), Tuesday I met up with Di at the LQS,and finished said quilting. so,it was realistically Wednesday before I really started the piecing. thankfully I did already have the paper plan on the wall and the fabrics pretty much chosen, numbered, so it really was just getting down to it!

By late,Thursday morning I had finished the piecing - phew! quilting should be a doddle right? It was all going swimmingly, until I was half way through the quilting and discovered a piecing error - bugger! You know that sinking feeling, the one where you think there is no way out of this? Hmm, I wasn't going to be beaten by this, so formulated a plan, that involved more freezer paper, and some silk thread and set to with needle and trusty thimble. It took longer than I had hoped but, got myself back on course. However, I didn't finish quilting it until 1am in the morning. I really couldn't stay up any longer, I could barely see, let alone sew binding and a hanging sleeve on. So off I toddled for some much needed sleep. Except I woke up at 5.30 am! and couldn't get back to sleep! Aaaaaah! resigned to,the fact, kettle on, I grabbed my cuppa and headed out to the studio to do battle with that damn quilt.

so it's now Friday, the last day for delivery in Birmingham, and I'm running on 4 hours of sleep, several cups of tea, and some very encouraging emails from the only person outside my family that had actually seen it, of sorts. the last stitch was put in at 10.30 am, but there was still labels and packaging of all three to sort out. I'm in the car and setting off down the road to Birmingham by 11.40. Not bad, but still up to 2 hours there, and then I have to drive all the way home again! well, knackered no longer describes how I felt, and with a quick stop to avail myself of the facilities at the drop off place and grab some lunch at the Tamworth Services I was home again by 4pm. completely spent.

was it worth it? Yes, I think so, only time will tell ... So whilst you're at Festival of Quilts, please,look out for my Carolina Christmas quilt in the Traditional section, Made in Cherry in the Contemporary quilts ... And my vision of Britain ... what it means to me ...



this quilt really is very personal to me, if you are heading to Festival, please let me know what you think, I shall be lurking and eavesdropping to see how it affects the onlookers - I'm very curious as to,how people will view it. I'm also interested to see how it sits with all the other entries.

So not content with the trip to Birmingham on the Friday, we went on a little road trip Saturday ... This was the view coming home ...




Home Monday night, and then off to Leeds and back to drop off a different quilt with a friend for her talk. and I got to see her quilting robot working too! I was hoping to go back to work for a rest, but it didn't work out that way either!

needless to,say I've had a very relaxing weekend, I hope you're not too exhausted reading about my madness. and to think I may even have managed to blog from my iPad (hopefully!)

there's plenty more madness to come!