January Sunrise is finished!

Everyone, I have amazed myself. Truly.

Almost SEVEN YEARS ago, I started a new quilt design. I wanted to design a paper pieced quilt that was intense. That you would look at and just say "WOW"! So, I opened up AutoCAD, and I drew a massive 101" square quilt with so many pieces it boggled my mind. I exported it and colored it a million different ways. I even drew up all the templates to use.

And then I sat on it.

I'd open it up every now and then, tinker with it, toy with the idea of starting. But it always came back to "oh, I don't have time for a project like that." And then I'd forget about it for several more months.

But in 2017, around Christmas or so, I signed up to go to a quilt retreat with the ladies in my old quilt guild. It would be 4 days of uninterrupted sewing time, at any hour of the day or night that I wanted.

I decided to take advantage, and get started.

I went thru the dozens of colored sketches I had, and finally decided to use the color scheme I started with! I always seem to gravitate toward blues. It's one of my favorite colors to sew with.

In January, before the retreat, I went to a couple guild sewing days, and I started with some of the center sections. I got done with a few pieces, and I was happy with how well I was able to reteach myself how to paper piece. (I always mess up a few times when I first get going.) I actually got done with almost half of the center, and was pretty impressed with my progress!

 


 



February rolled around, and I went on the retreat. It was GLORIOUS. I could sleep in, stay up late, wear my pajamas all day, and just SEW. I barely left my machine for 3 days, from about 8:30 am till after midnight a couple times. And I couldn't believe how fast it was coming together.

 

 



By the time I got home, I had almost the entire medallion finished. I just needed to do the lone star triangles. I had never done them before, so, as is my fashion, I drew them in AutoCAD to figure out the best way to assemble them. And, while they aren't all perfect, they came out really well!

 

So now the entire center medallion was done! And it's only March!

But my teenage son had two trips scheduled in 2019, so some fundraising was necessary. I set this aside to focus on some crafts to sell to help send him on these trips. He better appreciate it! (Turns out he really did, but that's another story for a different day!)

I still worked on it a little, here and there, working on the fabric quantities, occasionally bringing the project bag into work to sew on it a bit at lunch (on the featherweight I keep in my desk drawer!)

So the trips are pretty much paid for at this point, and I don't have any need to fundraise. I started working on it more often, setting up in the conference room at my office over lunch. People would sometimes pop in to chat and see what I was doing.

And I got to a point where all I had left were large completed units to sew together. So one day, I started sewing those together in a conference room over a lunch hour.



And I continued doing that a day or two a week for a couple weeks.

 

And one weekend, I couldn't take it anymore. I sat down on Saturday, and knocked out HALF the quilt.

 

And on Sunday?

Oh my goodness you guys. On Sunday...I FINISHED IT.



And I sat and stared at it for about half an hour.

I could not believe I had done it.

But it was still far from finished. I still had to add the border...



And send it out to be quilted (because my quilting is mediocre at best, and I was not going to ruin that many hours of piecing with less than awesome quilting!)



And finally, all that was left was the binding. I spent a few more lunch hours working in the conference room!



Oh my goodness, it's done! DONE!

But then again, I was only just beginning. I had a whole pattern to write. So I got writing.

And when I thought I was done, I got a group of testers together, who all did a phenomenal job on their own quilts!

 



5 drafts and lots of research on printing later....

And it's Done. DONE DONE DONE. I have nothing else to do on it.

I can't believe it's done!



Did I mention it's done?

You can get your copy by clicking the Add to Cart button at the right side of the page, near the top!

Also, a few weeks ago, I had my finished quilt entered in the Michigan Fiber Arts and Quilters Convention quilt show in Port Huron, MI. And I was told I just barely missed 3rd place. But I'll take almost 3rd out of 70 in my category! I got some great feedback from those that came by (it was kind of cool to be a fly on the wall that way!)