So I think everyone has a quilt story like this sooner or later.  My MIL saw some cute quilts I posted on Instagram (follow me @kimkwilts) and asked me to make her a quilt.  I said “Of Course!!!”  And I was searching for an excuse to make Melissa Corry‘s Summer Solstice quilt along, so I send her some links and sold her on the idea of me making that pattern, in her colors, for my MIL.  So I happily sewed along all summer, even finished it on time, and even won an amazing fat quarter stack from The Intrepid Thread for finishing on time.

Then came the quilting part.  Now I knew at this point that I was going to purchase my Handi-Quilter Avante, so I decided to wait until I go the machine to quilt it – especially because it was 85″x85″ and although I have quilted for 15 years on my domestic sewing machine, I learned long ago that I don’t do quilts of that size.  Period.  So after I got my machine and did a bit of practice on some destined-for-charity quilts, I loaded it on my machine.  I carefully picked a few designs from my Pro-Stitcher library, and started quilting away.  And as I finished the first row, I realized I HATED what I had done.

So I learned a tough lesson – it only takes an hour to put in the stitches, but it takes a week of every evening with a seam ripper to remove them.

And I started all over with a simple edge to edge design – and I’ve got to say I’m very pleased with how it turned out!