A long time coming

The last Lucy Boston block DONE! The inner honeycombs are from the Maine fabric store, some not bad fussy cutting if I do say so myself, hehehe.

Sometimes things you don't think you're going to finish get completed. Quilts, books, um.... Well, for me quilts and books are what I enjoy most as pastimes, and washing dishes and doing laundry are in a constant cycle of gathering, then getting sorted, so books and quilts it is.

Okay, rainy weather too. We have had HEAPS and GOBS of rain this month, which is already on the twenty-third day, how the heck did that happen? Where has March gone, or is going, and am I actually going to put thirty Lucy Boston blocks to use and close that quilty-EPP chapter of my life?

Yes, I believe I am. Dang, that's a weird, unpredicted aspect of this year!

Okay, just a little bit of backstory on my Lucy Boston experience. In 2018, when I started English paper piecing, I bought 1.5" Dritz hexagons from Joann, stiff and easy to baste but a bear to fold when sewing blocks together. At some point that year, or early in 2019, I moved onto honeycombs from Paper Pieces, less stiff and certainly smaller. I chose to make blocks for a Lucy Boston design, ordering fabric and more papers from a quilt shop in Maine, if I remember right, as they sold Lucy Boston kits of four different fat-quarter sized prints and the accompanying papers from Paper Pieces in Kentucky, which I do like for many of my EPP projects. They're about the same prices as Jodi Godfrey's Tales of Cloth papers yet the shipping is far cheaper, especially if you order $50 or more, then it's free. The papers are thicker than Jodi's and at times seem just a smidge bigger, but maybe that's just me. I use them interchangeably, but over the years I've become more fond of Jodi's papers for the ease of folding them, that slender difference in thickness noticeable, especially the smaller the papers are. And I'm TRULY finding that now using one-inch honeycombs.

Yet five or six years ago I knew so little about EPP, other than I LOVED IT! I employed fancy fabric and random scraps as I cut slips of prints for those small honeycombs, using a homemade fussy-cutting device I fashioned from cards included in stamps bought online to keep the stamps from being folded. Heavier than cardstock and certainly thicker than the Dritz papers from Joann, I played around with fussy cutting, those fabrics from Maine geared toward that level of futziness, lol. Yet I preferred the scrappy nature of making Lucy Boston blocks because, well, I'm not that detail oriented. Better to cut fabrics, then bag them with papers so I could sew them.

Except that quickly I found other patterns more to my liking, Jodi's papers easier to use. The Lucy Boston quilt lost its appeal, ending up in a tote. Occasionally I made a block, all the while wondering why I was spending my time on a project that no longer stirred my heart. The enthusiasm was wholly absent, replaced by a sense of duty. Yet not that of me kicking and screaming my way through the stitching, more like reminding myself that small stiff papers, even those from Kentucky, weren't my thing, and yet, why not do just a wee bit of sewing on it instead of fully abandoning this project....

Anyways, last summer when I had Covid I stitched a few, but one was left aside, stacked on the totes under my sewing table. I stared at it occasionally, curious to its purpose. Then I picked up Kawandi, incorporating the Red Sky at Night blocks. I ADORED that process, then suddenly one day, fairly recently, I gazed at that unfinished Lucy Boston block and thought, "AHA! I'll gather all the prepped pieces, stitch them, then make that quilt ala Kawandi!"

And now with the last block sewn, and a backing and batting waiting on the guest bed and blocks arranged, maybe I will do just that.

You will, Past Me asks.

Uh, maybe, I reply.

A quilt of grace indeed, Future Me mutters under her breath.

Yeah, I agree.

You're crazy, Past Me chuckles. That's one big-assed Kawandi quilt you're talking about.

I, uh, realize that, I answer.

It'll be fine, Future Me says, glaring at Past Me.

You're both nuts, Past Me chortles, returning to making an EPP quilt, looks like the autumnal Cherish from Jodi Godfrey.

I gaze at her handiwork with fondness, in that I was making those blocks when my SIL and BIL visited in 2019. He thought they were beautiful, Stan was his name. Past Me isn't aware Stan only had a few years left to live, funny how the different parts of me know this, that, and the other.

Future Me clears her throat as Past Me still snickers. Past Me doesn't look up, but I gaze at Future Me, who wears a look of all she knows, some of which I am now aware, but the bulk is beyond me, for which I am truly grateful. Finish this post, she says softly, read a couple more chapters of Book Four, then get to that quilt.

Crazy women, Past Me mumbles.

How much grace will be required, I ask, giving Future Me my attention.

Enough, she smiles, walking away.

And I'll have it, I inquire.

She turns back, smirks, then nods. You always do, she adds, shoving her hands in her pockets as she leaves the conversation.