First Finish of 2026

Last week was very productive, but the weekend was a bit rough since my back decided it needed to let me know I'd over done it.  We had to switch fitness centers (it's a long sordid tale that I don't want to dwell on).  The new fitness center equipment is the same, but different.  Different enough that my "normal" fitness routine is using muscles and putting me in positions different from before.  My back finally cried "Stop!" late Friday night.  So I have some rethinking to do when we go work out tomorrow.  Thankfully, I felt much better yesterday.  

I finished sewing the binding on Kate's Choice.  I'm going to share a lot about how this project evolved, mainly for myself as my blog is how I keep track of both my quilting and major life stuff.  If you want to see the finished quilt and not read the whole sorry tale, just scroll to the end.   

Kate's Choice actually started off as Grandmother's Choice, a quilt along sponsored by Barbara Brackman back in 2012.  

This sounded like such a fun quilt along.  I had the perfect fabric in my stash, Decadent Victorian from Moda fabrics.  

This line came out in 2007, so it was already 5 years old when I started the quilt along.  The bright pink is Bella Rosa from RJR fabrics, also from 2007.  The dark green used in some of the blocks and the border wasn't in the original fabric pull. 

I kept up with the first few weeks of the quilt along.

 

I made the first 5 blocks and then got completely stumped on the 6th block.  Barbara was using a lot of template patterns in these blocks and that was a skill set I hadn't mastered yet (still haven't).  Plus I was working full time, a supervisory position with 11 direct reports and a 13 year old at home. It's hard to tell from the photos, but the only block that was anywhere close to 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 was the Monkey Wrench block on the top right.  I was so frustrated with this project it was sent to time out in October of 2012. 

In late 2023, I was looking over my unfinished project list trying to decide what UFOs were going to go on my PHD list for 2024.  I was retired by then and a lot more experienced with piecing (by this point I'd been through the Bonnie Hunter school of piecing via her mystery quilts). Barbara had very thoughtfully left the quilt along posts up here.  After looking over at the number of template pieced blocks, I decided to just do my own sampler pulling blocks out of the Quilt Block Bible by Rosemary Youngs. 

Since I was picking my own block, the project name was changed from Grandmother's Choice to Kate's Choice.  My plan was to use these blocks as a quilt as you go project so I'd finally learn how to use my walking foot. I finished all the blocks in August of 2024, but didn't start quilting them until April of 2025. 

A very simple square in a square quilting pattern was quilted on each block. By the end of April 2025, one row was completely quilted and I'd made a start on the second row.  I marked my quilting lines with a hera marker. That worked out pretty well. All the blocks were quilted by August of last year and the first row was assembled by the end of that month.  

Assembling that first row was not fun at all.  So the whole thing went back into time out till January of this year.  After finishing only one quilt in 2025, but with 11 quilt tops needing to be quilted, I needed to get with the program on "how to quilt stuff".  So I made getting this project done a priority. I set up my sewing week such that Wednesday and Thursday were walking foot days. It was slow, but steady progress. All the rows were assembled by mid February.  

Once the top was all assembled, I realized it really needed a border. None of the reference books I had were helpful on that front. So I made up my own process and thankfully it worked. 

The borders were quilted with a "keyboard". That seemed to be the simplest option and it worked with the square in a square quilting in the blocks. The quilt was bound in the same dark green used on the front border.  I put the last stitches into attaching the binding last Monday, March 16th.  

I'm pretty happy with how it worked out. It's a small quilt, just lap sized. But I'm Ok with that, it will be a nice quilt to use in the office to cover up my legs when I'm working on the computer during the winter.  My Guy likes the back better than the front. 

I quilted the blocks with the backs attached. If you are careful with the layout, you end up with a two sided quilt. 

This was my next to oldest UFO.  I'm thrilled to have it finished and off the UFO list. It's not perfect by any means, but I learned so much by doing the quilt as you go method. I'm no longer scared of my walking foot.  I feel more confident to quilt some of my other finished quilt tops. 

Linking up with my typical Monday linky parties; Patchwork & Quilts plus Sew & Tell Monday.  Also linking up with Favorite Finish for March and I Quilted This.