Ambleside Chemist Shop Tile Quilt

 The finishing spree continues.  This top has been in the works since... drum roll... 2006.  Now it's finished, got all its borders, and they fit nicely.  Don't judge by the pictures... this is  unpressed, hot off the machine!  I am inordinately pleased to have it at this stage.

It's going to come with me to Asilomar, for my quilting class with Sue Rasmussen. Very fitting, since it had its genesis in a class at Asilomar.

The person who designed and developed this pattern is Chris Porter.  The book is called Quilt Designs from Decorative Floor Tiles. This particular quilt is based on a tile floor that she spotted at a chemist's shop (drugstore to us Yanks) in Ambleside.  My friend, Louise, has actually been there and seen the floor in person. Pretty neat!  The original floor, and Christine's quilt, are in terra cotta, browns, and golds.

But that wasn't the color scheme I needed for this quilt, nor was it going to work in the original shape. You see, I made this for my middle daughter (who is known in these pages as D3), who has a large bare wall in her living room. She loves green--any shade of green--with burgundy a close second.

Luckily for me, she hasn't changed her color preferences over the years so despite the passage of time, it will still work.

The long sad story of why it's taken so long to get this quilt to this point has a lot to do with my "life" over the last six years. The class at Asilomar was my first one for several years--and my sewing machine had pretty much just been living in its case for a while before that. Something about a husband with a broken leg, a knee replacement, a couple of weddings, then the husband's cancer... I did manage to get some sewing done during this time period, and even afterwards, but it was always elsewhere and for a relatively short period. Lots of "ugly quilt" and charity-quilt workdays. A couple more trips to Asilomar, but again never with a "finished object" to show for it.

I'm not even going to talk about my back. At least, since the surgery, I have been recovering, and thus this hauling out of old projects and getting them finished. Eight quilts (I hope to blog about them as they get finished) went off to be "quilted by check" with the nice ladies in Turlock at Cloth and Quilts.  Six have already come back, had their binding sewn on; one's got the hand part of the binding done, so that might be another post.

"Hand" is a four-letter H word, especially when the arthritis is flaring up. Oh well. It will be worth it!

Summing up, the Tile Quilt is now ready (after a good press) to be quilted, and I have high hopes to see it hanging in its new home soon.