Quilt in a Week

Last weekend, my mom and I decided that we really wanted to make something for my cousin who was going into an unexpected surgery on Monday. We had just been to the sale at Quiltmakers, a local shop that is going out of business (retirement, not bad economy), and I had purchased a Terry Atkinson book. There was a perfect, quick pattern in it called Shoeboxes. When we arrived at my mom's house, we started going through her stash and quickly came up with the 18 FQs we needed to put it together. I brought them home and swapped a few out, and this is what we started with. Five of them were a fabric bundle that my mom bought last year, and we built all the others around that bundle.

On Sunday, we got the top together in about 4 1/2 hours, and my mom had some extra wide backing that we could use for the back without having to piece it (always a treat!). She cut the backing and I brought it all home to load on the frame.

It was on the frame by Monday night, ready to go...I decided to try my first pantograph on it and it worked out really well. I am looking forward to trying more after this experience. I did run into a slight problem on Wednesday when I was quilting along to discover that the backing was short...by about 18"! Not sure how it happened, but I got the quilt off the frame, got more fabric from my mom, and got it pieced and re-loaded, then finished the last few rows of quilting. The last couple rows didn't line up perfectly, but they were close enough.

I got it bound on Friday night and we decided to head over to Cincinnati for a day trip on Saturday to deliver the surprise and also visit with my aunt and other cousin, as they'd been there all week taking care of Julie. The kids had a great time getting to see them all - it had been over a year for my aunt and Mary, so they were amazed at how much the kids have grown.

(She doesn't even look like she had surgery earlier in the week, does she?)

This is the fastest I have ever put a quilt together - of course, the easy pattern, already available fabric, and partnership between me and my mom all helped make it happen. Not sure how soon I will do that again, but it is nice to know that, in a pinch, it is possible!