Quilt of Hope

Ever since early this year, I have had the desire to make a quilt.  The desire was only intensified when I received my beautiful heirloom quilt this summer.  My biggest problem is that I don’t really know how to quilt.  Seriously, though – how hard can it be?  I already know how to sew, right?

I purchased a quilt book that had the particular quilt I fancied (“Summer Porch” by Eleanor Burns), and was very excited.  However, upon opening the book and reading the directions, I found that they may as well have been written in Swahili.  I am totally out of my league here.  Not good.  I asked my mother-in-law for some help.  She looked at it (she makes quilts all the time) and gave me a few pointers on deciphering the directions.  Thank goodness!

Now, at the close of the year, I am finally getting closer to starting this enormous project.  I have to gather a few more tools, and equipment, but I now have the most important thing – the fabric! Woohoo!

I went to the fabric store in search of the perfect fabrics for this oh-so-important project.  I had an idea of what I wanted, with some amount of allowable variation.  This is what I ended up buying.  I suppose I should have bought a few more prints, but I didn’t see any more that really grabbed my attention.

The sashing will be the plain, off-white muslin you see in the background.  This set of coordinating fabrics is made by Colorbok.  I fell in love with them and was so glad to see that they were on sale for 30% off! :)  I thought the muslin was on sale, but it wasn’t so I was able to use a 40% off coupon, which was better than a sale!  When I went through the checkout, the fabric rang up at the normal price.  I mentioned this to the attendant who told me that this particular kind of fabric was, in fact, not on sale.  I was chagrined, and showed her that it had been sitting under the sale sign.  Guess what?  It wasn’t on sale.  It was last week’s sale sign that someone had neglected to remove.  So, they gave me the fabric at the sale price!  Double Woohoo!  The Lord gave me a much better deal than the store intended to give me! 

I am so excited and hopeful about making this quilt.  I don’t know when I will be able to begin, especially with all the travel and the holidays just around the corner, but I am determined to do a good job and enjoy the whole process!