The Hardest Thing About Quilting

I guess if I've been quilting for 30 years or more, I must still enjoy it. And with all that time, the techniques should be deeply embedded in my fingers. Having started with traditional blocks and methods, I've progressed through several phases, stretching and exploring both design ideas and construction tools.

But one thing doesn't get any easier. If anything, it just gets harder.

Time

Even the little guy above, which measures only three feet by two feet hanging on the wall, took over a week to finish. The larger one below, that I'm working on for my friend, Kaye, started out last May, and it will be at least this May before the final stitch goes into the binding. Yes, other projects come and go, and I might be working on more than one quilt at once, but still, finished is finished.

What's hard is all the quilts flying around in my head and my heart!

Since New Zealand, I've been thinking about a quilt centered around that paradisical place. Early Thursday morning, the design popped into my head. I need to work out the details, but know for the most part how it will look.

But the execution will take months, if not another year. WAH! Yes, I love the process, but I want them done now, I want to see them all, wrap up in them all, give them all away.

So many quilts, so little time.