Never Say…

the word NEVER!  You KNOW it always comes back to bite you!

Early last week I was telling my daughter,  “Your mom will NEVER hand-quilt again!”  I have not done any hand-quilting since shortly after purchasing my longarm machine in 2004.  I had not planned on doing any again.  My hand-quilting rails and stands are hanging out in the woodworking shop because I knew I would not use them again.  My bag of hand-quilting thread, needles, finger protectors, etc. can not be found… I looked high and low.  Of course they are in “that” room somewhere!  (The messy one I blogged about when I lost the perfect fabric.  BTW, it is still pretty messy.  I know that surprises you… HAHA!)

Last week I made a trip to pick up a quilt.  The customer said she thought it only needed the edges finished.  I interpreted this as “needs binding”.  When I got there it was a king-size quilt in beautiful blue and yellow.  Don’t you just love that pattern?  (And I had not noticed until I posted this picture that there is a “mistake” in the color placement in this section!  Perhaps it was intentional, a “humility” block?)

It was hand-quilted but not finished.  Almost one complete row and most of the border seams need hand-quilted, and the quilter was going in every ditch… there are a lot of pieces in each one of those blocks!

The customer said she just wanted it finished, and for me to just put it on the longarm and finish it… she did not mind that there might be tucks and puckers on the underneath side.  She just wanted it DONE!

My heart would not let me put this on the machine, therefore I am now eating those words I so positively uttered just a few days before.  All things considered, it is going pretty fast because the other quilter used large stitches, so that releases me to do the same.  I will have to do some patching on the batting around the edges.  Evidently this one has not been worked on in a long time and the poly batting is in pieces!  I have no lap quilting frame so I am just smoothing, pin basting, and doing the best I can.  I am remembering why we should not hand-quilt when the warm weather gets here.  It only takes about 2 minutes of being up close and personal with this quilt to bring on a major hot flash!

When it is all done and returned to the customer my heart will not have any regrets that I did something to the quilt that did not honor the first quilter’s vision.  It is taking a lot longer than I thought, and of course I did not charge nearly enough for that time, but it was a heart-thing.  I am sure you all would feel the same way.

Now I will NOT use those words again, because even though I sincerely hope I do NOT have to hand-quilt again, I am NOT going to bring more my way by saying “NEVER”!!

KAT