Beyond Super-Slow

Windom Variation: 2020  (Started: 2013)

(Warning: I’ve included dates just to emphasise, to myself more than anything, how really “slow” this quilt was in the making!)

In 2012 we visited the Southern Highlands Quilt Show held at the local RSL and after, dropped in as you do, to our favourite shop, Timeless Threads.  I purchased a charming “Windom Quilt” pattern along with a Moda Charm pack that just could not be left on the shelf.  Sadly, Timeless Threads in Mittagong, closed in March, 2013.  (31/3/2013).  Our group had, over many years established quite a tradition of visiting the Southern Highlands to work our way along a quilt/craft shop “trail” that included visiting the villages of Berrima, Mittagong, and Bowral.  We tried for Moss Vale too, lunch and coffee stops permitting. 

This photo is from the quilt pattern showing the finished quilt

Timeless Threads had a sample quilt made up in the Windom pattern and I just loved the scrappy design.  I immediately imagined it useful for my many aging left-overs!  In the main, most of the blocks were small, 4” squares.  This appealed as a highly portable project, easy to take to group meetings, either the shorter evening sessions or even our longer monthly meetings.  The central medallion, a tree, did not suit me though, and I eventually decided to make good use of a semi-finished applique block that had been sitting in my UFO stash (since 1988, gasp!) for rather too many years! 

This applique block has a story all of its own – one of those dreadful blue marking pen stories.  The pen lines had heat set on the fabric (from sitting in my car on a rather warm summer’s day) and refused to budge.  In order to save the nearly finished block, a sampler block from Elizabeth Kennedy’s class at the 1989 Armidale Symposium, I embroidered over the lines and added a few decorative flourishes around the applique, including a few of my grandmother's buttons.  Pleased with my efforts, I felt the block did rather need a wash.  Well, my tub of Vanish took those blue lines right out!  I still shake my head to think of it.  This “magic” became a discussion point of our next (October 2014) meeting. 

Meanwhile I kept working on the blocks for the Windom quilt during both 2014 & 2015 even managing to take some away with us on holidays.  I had enough blocks for a photo shoot on my design wall in March 2015.  Aren’t mobile phones sooo handy!  Anyway, after fiddling around with the colours and preferring a pale colourway, I removed most “strong” or contrasting blocks and had the top being sewn up & basted by April 2016.

It took another 2 years to get that quilt machine quilted and bound.  Don’t think it was finished with me yet, though!  The central medallion still caused me grief and hand quilting seemed to be the only solution.  A pattern on the BeBe Bold packaging lent itself to an interesting quilting design.  One that took another 2 years to finish.  Joy of joys, I finished my Windom Variation on 14 June 2020, only eight years later.

Not the best of photos as light was fading from my verandah
& the holder was complaining. Windom Variation: finally finished 2020

Just for the Record:
Quilt Finished Size: 178 x 178 cm
Medallion: Cut in 1998; continued in Feb 2012
Block Size: 4”
Cut in: Mar 2013
Pieced: 2 Dec 2015
Basted: 13 Apr 2016
Quilted: Machine: started 15 Mar 2017
Bound: Jul 2018
Quilted: Hand: started 30 May 2018 & finished 8 Jun 2020
Quilt Type: Vintage
Quilt Finished: 14 June 2020
Exhibited:
Collection: Gifted 3 Oct 2023
Pattern Name: The Windom Quilt
Pattern Source: Timeless Threads, 31 March 2013
Fabrics Purchased: From Timeless Threads (a Moda Charm Pack) & my Stash…
Fabric Design: Mixed
Fabric Style: Soft
Materials Type: Printed Cottons
Wadding Type: Cotton
Backing: Pieced using left-over remnants