009- Finally Finished

It has been a long time coming but I am finally finished with my Gerbera Daisy quilt!

Rebekah and I started these quilts over eight and a half years ago, when she was pregnant with Brock. (And Rebekah's has been finished almost that long!) I was still relatively new to quilting and didn't understand completely the concept of a design wall. The directions for the pattern suggested constructing the base of each block, adding the flower, blanket stitching, AND THEN join all the blocks. I thought I had a better idea... NOT! I watched Rebekah struggle to blanket stitch all of those petals with her enormous pregnant belly and wanted none of it. I hung my *completed* top on the wall in my workroom where it stayed for 4 years until we moved to Utah.



I struggled for good ideas of how I could complete this beautiful quilt top, but none came to me so I put it away and thought about it periodically for the next few years. I purchased several different additional pieces of batik fabric to add borders, but, again, just couldn't get it together. It lived in a drawer with all of its assorted pieces.

So let's fast forward (hmmm, is there anything about this quilt or post that is fast?) to last August. I decided that I REALLY wanted to finish my quilt AND I really wanted it to fit on my king-sized bed. What to do? What to do?

Well, first I started by taking the top apart so that I could blanket stitch the blocks one at a time. But I still wanted it bigger. I didn't want to just start cutting, but I had an idea!! (see light bulb!) I took a photo of the top, opened it in PhotoShop, cut it into blocks and played in PhotoShop until I had a design I liked... cool! Luckily I had quite a bit of leftover fabric so I ended up making three more blocks and adding a wide outside border. Yeah... it fits! Yeah... it's finished! Yeah... I'm glad!