Today I put together all of the
Swoon blocks I have been working on since September 2011! I know. It's almost
vintage Swoon. Hee. Hee. I can cheer now, but that wasn't always the case!
Swoon itself, bigger that life and sophisticated and full of optical illusions was a pattern I immediately knew I had to make. The dictionary definiton of swoon says "to be overwhelmed by joy". Truly this quilt was a joy and a heartbreak in so many ways. (This of course was no fault of the talented
Camille Roskelley, but I so wished at times she was my next door neighbor so I could have her come stand by me while I sewed, as if her very presence would break down the mental block I had grown!)
I must tell you gals, I absolutely love the fabrics. I saw
Twin Fibers quilt, and had to make it from Anna Maria Horner's incredible collection
Loulouthi (my personal favorite of all of them!) and finding the perfect background in
Valori Wells' Wrenly (in violet) seemed a match in fabric heaven.
Those who follow my ramblings here, might know that Swoon kicked me in the patooty more than once. I failed at reading the pattern correctly
and cut wrong from irreplaceable fat quarters. I had a difficult time keeping the pieces in check and sewed and resewed these blocks many times. At times I was swooning alright. I was cursing and swooning at my woes. It was crazy. I was reading here and there on the internet about people finishing this quilt in a week or less. Good Grief. There were
Swoon Alongs, and I wasn't.
But maybe the biggest struggle I had with this lovely and feisty quilt was that I began the cutting and piecing the very weekend my dear Dad was really starting to go downhill with his lymphoma.
At the time we just didn't know how seriously ill he was and it became evident the morning I cut into that turquoise dot. That dot fabric had to be resewn into cloth before I could cut it over. It worked, but I was frustrated. And Sad. And my Dad was sick.
I put it all away until 2012 after he had passed, and thought I'd have a renewed surge of good luck in picking it up again. Nope. I still had a mind boggling time with it. At the end of last year I knew it wasn't going to get finished, but I made it a resolution to finish it in 2013.
In January I sailed through 3 blocks, and then pow! I found that I had something in the second block on the left center all cut wrong and man, I practically threw it in the forever UFO place.
But, on a recent get away to Nevada City, I gave it a talking too.
Come on Swoon. Let me show you how great it will be to become a quilt. You know you want to grow up and be a part of our family, right? And on the last night of the getaway, I did it. I finished the last block. See it there on the design wall?
This last week I started playing with the placement. This quilt is so big it takes up my whole living room floor. I know, I either have a small house or a big quilt. I'd say this is a big quilt! My little helper, Teddy was assisting in my efforts.
And guess what else? I made an EXTRA block somehow. What the heck. It's Swoon.
Just goooo with it! ( I see a table runner in someone's future).
This weekend I buckled down with some positive visualizations and put the sashings on Swoon. She seems to me to have grown out of her awkward teenage years and become quite a beauty. Here she is on our lawn this Sunday morning. This lovely 80x80 quilt top is full of tears and anger and fear and frustration. But also full of hope and determination and finally completion and love. So like life itself.
I lost some very dear ones during the time since I began Miss Swoon. I realized I had alot more than a nearly 60 year old ever thought she had to learn about sewing and coping and grief and friendship and family. In the end it appears that a quilt is so very much more than fabric and thread. xoxo Pam
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| My Favorite Block :) |
