Show and Tell

Every year my mom and I go to the Vermont Quilt Festival.  And every year I tell myself that I will only buy fabric -- not patterns, I don't need ANY MORE patterns.  But then the booths are so inspiring and the patterns and quilt samples are so beautiful that I give in to temptation.  Somehow I equate buying a pattern with having the actual finished product in my home -- I tend to forget the pesky construction stage in the middle.  I'm developing quite a collection of patterns.  They look beautiful in their little plastic bags.  Don't think I will ever finish all of them.  Just goes to show you how strong my resolve is.

But thanks to my amazing long arm quilter Joyce, I'm happy to say that I've just lightened my load by one.  Here's the pattern that I bought at VQF a couple of years ago.  Maybe it was a few years ago.  Ok, it was probably five.

It's a Bonnie Blue Quilts pattern.  Pretty isn't it!  You can see why I caved.

And here's my finished quilt...

Ta da!!  Ok, I admit it's smaller.  I envisioned it as a wall quilt, rather than a lap or bed quilt.  But hey, it's finished -- beautifully quilted by Joyce, bound, and ready to hang on the wall.  All that's left is to decide which wall.

Here's a close-up of a tree of life block.  I love the straight lines in the gold -- Joyce repeated them throughout the quilt in the inner blue and sawtooth borders.

And I especially love how she quilted the tree trunks...

So there you have it.  One pattern down, a dozen to go.  At my current rate of one every five years it will only take me 60 years to finish them all.  

This year I PROMISE not to buy any more patterns.  I really, really mean it.  Honest.