Tropical Storm

Many years ago, when we were still newyweds hubby fell in love with stack and whack quilts. They were not (and still aren't) my favorite pattern, and I told him that if he wanted one, he'd better sign up for a class and make one because it was WAAAAYYYYY the heck at the bottom of my list. (Before you get on me about this, please understand that at that time, I was working on a queen size mainer's compass medallion quilt for him.)

So you know what he did? He took himself down to the LQS and signed us both up for a stack and whack quilt, and then we went shopping. He chose a wild tropical print, and I chose a soft colored large floral print. His background was kona cotton black, mine was a white printed with pale green. He made a HUGE number of blocks, I made a moderate number of blocks. His got sewn into a quilt top that is king size, mine got sewn into a queen size top.

Last year, in the big UFO cleanout, I came across these two tops again. We sat down together with my friend Melinda who agreed to custom quilt his top. They talked at length about what kind of motifs were desirable and what we would need to buy in way of backing and batting. It took me a long time to get around to placing the required orders and getting the pieces to Melinda, but she did take them off my hands and on Christmas eve, she delivered the quilt to me in a secret meeting, because hubby did not know that the deed had been done. Of course it was not bound, but he was pleased, nonetheless to see the beautiful work that Melidna had done, and to realize that his quilt was all but finished.

And what has happened with my quilt top? Well. I hated the setting. So I took it apart. I removed all the borders and sashing, and squared up the blocks again. They are sitting in a neat stack in the fabric room waiting for their turn on my design wall. Now that I've taken "Ramblin' Rose" down, I will get them up soon. And so begins the process, again, of choosing a setting. I can't wait.