Some Quilts Need to Steep a While, Like Tea...

Back in 2003, I started quilting, taking a class as our local adult school.  I took classes there for four years or so.  During those years, our teacher had us do one or two fabric exchanges every year, followed by a pattern to use the strips or squares we traded.  One year (and no, I don't remember which year), we exchanged fabrics with leaf patterns.  The pattern she gave us to use them was for tesselating leaves.  I had SO many leaf fabrics, I had enough to make a full size quilt... I divided the fabrics into color palettes by seasons (winter, spring, summer and fall), then cut and sewed them together.  Somehow, without a dedicated design wall, I managed to put them all together into a quilt.  I wasn't thrilled with it, but it was done.. or so I thought.

And that is where it ended, the top ended up in WIP purgatory... stalled at the quilting stage.  I didn't like it much and it had no home to go to, so I figured, 'Why finish it?' - after all, it was too big for me to quilt, and I couldn't see the need to spend money on a longarmer to quilt it.  It languished.   Until earlier this year, when my daughter-in-law saw it and decided she liked it... But theirs is a queen sized bed, so I added some wider borders to it, had it quilted, and bound it a few weeks ago. 

Because it was for my son and dau-in-law now, I called it 'Seasons of Love'.  Does it assuage my guilt at not having given them a wedding quilt so long ago?  Not completely, but I do feel a little less guilty.  I hope it keeps them warm and cozy, and that we got all the cat hair and dander off it so her allergies don't flare up.