I can’t believe it took me a year to make this quilt. I’ve had quilts take a while, but usually it’s because I’m interrupted or I lose interest. But I’ve never worked on one quilt for a full year. I have to say, the results are worth it. My son and his fiancee’s quilt is done:

The pattern is Isla. I can’t recall the fabric line, but it’s 100% cotton. Bamboo batting. Glide thread on my QNique machine – all freehand and ruler work.

I learned a lot making this quilt.

• Always add more time. No matter how long you think it will take to make a quilt with a pattern you’ve never worked with before, add time. I started this in the spring last year. I figured I’d have it ready by fall. Ha!
• Buy more fabric than you think you’ll need. Even if you are already overestimating. I bought as much as I calculated I’d need after doubling the pattern size (they wanted a king size) but I ran out of two colours. One reason was I made mistakes – several of them. But I was very lucky that the online quilt store I bought from still had the fabric in stock.
• Make sure your sewing machine is in working order before you start. I have a very long story about how my new top-of-the line sewing machine was a lemon but I was ghosted by the store, constantly telling me it wasn’t the machine – it was me. Me – the one who has been using sewing machines for decades without incident. So after struggling with that machine for several months, I finally switched to my small mechanical machine (used for when I need to bring my machine somewhere, like a retreat) and completed most of the quilt with that.
• Test all the products you use. Something I used left stains, small black ink-like stains on the lighter coloured fabric. I was using newsprint for my paper piecing, as I’ve done many times before. But there was A LOT of it and I couldn’t get it out of all the seams. Again though, something that’s happened before without incident. I sprayed the blocks with a popular fabric “starch” and after pressing, these little bits of ink appeared all over the place. I didn’t notice it until I’d done much of the quilt. One whole row, the last one with the most complicated piecing, had to be done over, as well as several other blocks where the staining was just too obvious. I’d tried all the usual techniques to try to get the ink out. I just couldn’t. I really could have cried.
• Don’t expect perfection. I’m one of those quilters who gets really annoyed when their points don’t match. And when they don’t, I try to hide them. You’ll see in one of the photos a very good example of points not matching up. But you know what? In that whole king size quilt, does it really matter that they’re not all perfect?
• Take your time. Even if the project is taking longer than you anticipated, don’t rush. That’s when I made the stupid mistakes, the really stupid ones.

Anyway, it’s finished and I’m very happy with it. The Beast Quilt is now living in its new home and I hear it’s quite happy too.

Here are some close ups:

To help balance things, I quilted up two donation quilts right after this one. They helped clear my mind and move on to my next projects.