Bloomin' Garden

This post does not center around a garden theme. No, but by far, the hardest Bloomin' thing that these hands have ever accomplished! And many lessons were learned along the way. Stumbling through the internet is a favorite pastime and finding interesting and unique happenings is the highlight of this journey. Coming across the website Bloomin Workshop , the eyes feasted upon a free quilt-along. Now, how could one resist this opportunity to quilt along with one of the best? Of course, it was easy to jump on this bandwagon as it was year long process and project. Anita would supply the pattern idea each month and participants would just sew up their blocks to create a finished quilt by year's end. The project was a Medallion quilt--something new to learn and anticipate each month.
Okay, here is how you begin. Find your center medallion block. It must be 12.5"--well, that should be an easy task, but which block to make? It needs to be quite the focal point. Here is the block that was decided upon:
The first few sew arounds went along fine and dandy. Then one month slipped by and another and guess what, you are off schedule and there is the need to hurry to catch up with the group's progress. Chug, chug along is what this one was being called after a few months work. Stretch...... fit those blocks around the best you can. Then there was the month when there were bias blocks, lots of bias blocks and if you have to ripe (as in this case two times) the bias becomes slightly off--well, actually, big time off!
Finally, yes, finally, the whole was complete and bundled off to the quilter. Out of sight, out of mind, right? NOT! The quilter is having a rough time getting the top to quilt--why, well, it's because of all those mistakes in measuring and bias riping. My advice to her--just take out what you can and make the best of the quilting. Well, she is a saint! There was no swearing, no cussing, and hopefully, no talking behind my back about this quilt.... whisper, whisper..did you hear about that one medallion quilt she made?

The final project was an experience and the quilt along or chug along (in my case) turned out pretty good--thanks to one good quilter! and hopefully, if and when another medallion quilt is considered, the quilter will not shy away and say "never more".