Feeling some better today, better enough to finish this:



It's the Snowman quilt!

Somehow, buy some miscalculation (or, more likely, a descision I forgot I made somewhere along the way), it went from its originally-planned scanty-twin-size top (as a throw to go over my legs in the evening) to a full sized top, big enough to cover my double-sized bed.

So now I need to decide what to do about actually finishing the top - my choices are, hand quilt it (and have to wait until my other quilt's out of the frame, then actually go through the whole year-or-more process), tie it (Meh. I'm not fond of tying quilts, for me the process' only merit is that it's done fast), or hire it out to be quilted.

I'm actually leaning towards that third possibility - the quilt store nearest me now does free-arm quilting, and although I'm not exactly mad about the way machine-done quilting looks, it would be good for two reasons: first, the quilt would most likely be done for this winter's decorating (that's what it was planned as, a winter-decoration quilt) and it would be more sturdy/potentially washable. And a third reason: I'd be contributing farther to the survival of a nice small shop that I'd like to see continue.

It will cost something like $100 or $150 to have it done, but then again, it would be DONE.

Also, I don't think of this quilt as a great masterpiece: yes, technically, I did do a good job on it, nearly all the corners match perfectly (unusual for me), but the color scheme is not quite what I expected it to come out as, and it's a departure for me - much more Pop-Artish than what I normally do (jewel tones or vintagey pastels) and I'm not sure I'd be eager to look at the thing for months upon months in the frame.

So I don't know. I may go down there sometime soon and ask if I can see samples of the various motifs she uses. I don't know if there's more than one motif you can choose or if it's all that gosh-awful big meandery stuff that's the same for every quilt done regardless of the design and pattern. I think that's the root of my dislike of machine-quilted quilts; so many of them I have seen have the same pattern - sort of a loopy fleur-de-lys shape - running across them, and it has no real relation or bearing to the design of the top or of the fabrics used, and in some cases it just clashes and looks like a complete afterthought.

But maybe she offers a choice of designs, and I can find one that will coordinate ok, maybe even that is scaled the same as the blocks.