the Single Girl

My Single Girl. What a journey this quilt has been.

I started it during the Single Girl Quilt Along while I was still what I considered a beginner (I don't think I even had 5 quilts under my belt). I was inspired, found the perfect fabric, and was a motivated cutting machine. As with many other things, the newness faded, and I began to see that I had taken on quite a challenge. It fell to the wayside for 5 or 6 months, sitting in the WIP pile staring at me. Finally, one day, I decided I was going to, under no uncertain terms, finish this quilt before I started anything new.

When it was finally whole and pieced, I just couldn't believe it. If you have the opportunity to look closely, its terrible, I mean really terrible. I ran out of white thread while piecing and rather than going out and buying more like a normal person, just switched to dark grey. Dark grey!! And then pink when I ran out of the grey. The blocks themselves, they worked out great. The curves actually weren't all that hard compared to some of the other ups and downs. 8 blocks into my 16 total, I figured out I was pressing my seams to the outside of the curve or background fabric rather than to the inside where it wouldn't be seen. Half my blocks done.... ha please, I was not about to take them apart.

Sighing to myself, I continued on. The apartment I lived in was...unique. It was my first apartment out of college in what used to be an old factory. Cool on some levels, but it had almost no windows. My sewing room actually did not have any windows at all, or an over head light, just the lamp that I used to sew by. Poor lighting being what it was, I did not notice that the solid cream I had chosen for my background actually had a distinct right and wrong side (It wasn't a Kona, some weird brand my quilt store carried). You can only see it if the light hits it right, but one side 'shines' if you will, and one doesn't. Holy hell my quilt looked like a checkerboard. Panic set in at this point, and I was so mad that all of this hard work was going to end up giving me an ugly quilt.

Now we all know that the maker of the quilt can see the imperfections more than anyone else (and I am really hard on myself), but I sucked it up and kept going, hoping that in the end it wouldn't be noticeable. It was a year ago that I finished piecing the top, with some seams that couldn't even be called a scant 1/4 inch as a joke. I figured because of its size, I would never be able to quilt it on my machine. So naturally, I asked my mom to put it on the long arm. She said sure, if you trim the thread tails. Pshhhh, I was so over this quilt by that point. It sat in a closet for a while until every now and again I would pull it out, only to end up putting it right back.

This last time however, I decided that I had procrastinated enough. And not only that, but I decided to quilt it myself. And in the end, I love it. It is stunning. I don't just love it because I made it, I love it because of the journey, because of the amount of learning that went into to, because it is totally imperfect and so am I. Since finishing it last week, I have not only used it at all times on the couch, but moved it to my bed at night as well. I used Quilters Dream Cotton as the batting which makes it extra snuggly. The back and binding are Kona Aloe which is also used in the rings themselves.

So here it is, my finished Single Girl.