Storm at Sea Quilt: 2008 - 2013

It only took me five years to complete this king-sized bed quilt!  The problem?  It didn't fit on my quilting rack, so I had to hand-quilt it in a quilting hoop.  Also, between 2008 and 2010 I was working 80 hours a week, between 2010 and 2011 I was busy writing a novel, between 2011 and 2012 I tried to sell two houses and moved, sold, donated, or threw out a lifetime of belongings collected by five different family members including myself, and between 2012 and 2013 I'd been battling a slew of bad luck.

After a series of health related scares, I promised myself I would make finishing this quilt a priority.  I suppose that makes completing the quilt all the sweeter, but ironically, we now live in one of the hottest states in America and no longer need quilts for our bed.  I started such a huge project because the bed quilt given to us as a wedding gift was deteriorating beyond repair, and we were freezing during the winter months despite having the fireplace going, having the heater cranked up, wearing multiple layers of clothes, and laying under several layers of blankets.  I didn't care for the dimensions of the king-sized quilts available through stores, so I decided to make my own and make it generous enough to cover our chins and our toes and each other all at the same time.

Historically, whenever I get down to the last few inches of a major project, something goes very wrong and those last few inches take me hours to complete.  So, when I got down to the last few inches on this quilt and realized that I was feeling shaky between being hungry, being tired, and needing to go to the bathroom, I decided to take a break rather than to push it.  Once refreshed, I returned to the quilt to sew the last three inches of the final seam on the border, and I ran out of thread.  Typical.  But... I could deal with it, because I had already taken care of my body by resting and eating.  You can't change history or bad luck, but you can change the way you deal with it.

With that said, here are pictures of the final product:

The reverse side is supposed to be more traditional waves...

I had a hard time keeping the dogs off it each time I spread it out somewhere to work on it.

I ran out of blue fabric, so I used a fabric with seashells in sand to represent the beach...

It seems I'm always running out of something when it comes to quilting, but I view it as just one more opportunity to come up with a creative idea to substitute something else for what I need.