A quilt.

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning."
Louis L'Amour

This quilt must give a thank you to crazy mom quilts, who led the quilt-a-long that kept me motivated to the finish line. 

My quilt. Finished. My mind desperately races to begin the next project. Wait! Stop! I need to admire this beauty for a moment.
The front: Billions of squares going round and round and round and round....

The new machine my husband purchased for our one year anniversary worked like a dream. I threw the walking foot on and went for it when quilting time came. 

The Back: FLOATING SQUARES!! All 8 colors I used in the front. Booyah. I take full credit for this part of the design.  

 The only real issues I had came from not getting it quite flat when I basted it together. A few wrinkles in the quilting.  I'm still feeling pretty good. I think some of the shrinking and crinkleing during it's first machine wash will hide some of the flaws. (Who am I kidding... in my eyes, it's flawless. I love this quilt)

Close up of the front:  the very center square. Where it all started...

 Special thanks to the man behind the curtain. Also, this one shows my quilting pattern:

 I did a scrappy binding, it has all the quilt colors in it.

Another Helen Handcraft completed. Now... on to the next beginning.

the cat helping me sew...

Cats sleep anywhere
Any table, any chair
Top of piano, window ledge
In the middle, on the edge
Open drawer, empty shoe
Anybody's lap will do
Fitted in a cardboard box
In the cupboard with your frocks
They don't care
Cats sleep anywhere!

Eleanor Farjeon

Today, Tesla helped me baste my quilt. Which lay in the sun. Then Tesla forgot her job as official helper and fell asleep.

 Even so, I got this sucker pinned together.

 

Up the stairs I went to get it quilted. Tesla came as well. Ready and eager to start her duties as quilting helper.

 ...and she fell asleep on my fabric stash. Well, now I know why it takes costco packs of lint rollers to keep my projects cat fur free.

She expressed only slight annoyance that I had the audacity to disturb her with a picture.

cutting apart and putting together

"People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."
— Marilyn Monroe

It starts like this:

Fabric, whole and pretty. Then I cut it into a billion pieces and sew it all back together into this:

which makes me feel like a crazy person. Why cut it all apart, just to put it back together? (do things truly fall apart so they can become something better?) A closer look:

All those pretty fabrics, made into square after square.
From the left over fabric I made the back:

this will be, by far, my biggest quilt. About a twin size. My husband stands on his toes to try and hold the whole things up. So exciting.

Next up: basting and quilting. Some trepidation as I think about quilting this large quilt. But with my handy new walking foot, I'm hoping it will be a breeze.