I never expected to make this quilt.

Someone else, someone I’ve never met, planned to make the quilt almost 15 years ago. She passed away a few years ago, and her family sold the supplies to another person I’d never met.

The second owner of the supplies was a novice quilter, and felt overwhelmed at the prospect of making this fairly advanced quilt. She held on to it for a while, and then decided she was never actually going to even start it.

She contacted the president of the quilt guild I belong to (finally, someone in this story that I’d met!), offering to donate the supplies to a guild member who had the skills and inclination to complete the quilt.

Our president passed the message on to the membership, and I was the lucky first one to respond, ‘winning’ the contact info of the novice quilter.

We made arrangements to meet, so I could pick up the supplies. She had a big tub of fabric for the quilt, including 5 yards of backing fabric, and a big bolt of 15 yards of fabric to use for the background of the two-color blocks. The tub also contained a book about the quilt, special rulers to use for making the blocks, and software that could be used to plan the quilt and print out templates for cutting out the fabric pieces.

I felt a little bad about taking these (few hundred dollars worth of) quilting supplies off this novice quilter’s hands. In future talks with her, though, it became clear that it was something of a relief to her.

She’d made a promise to the family of the original owner that she would complete the quilt, and the weight of that promise had been like an albatross around her neck for the past year.

Now the project has become mine. My hope is that she’s handed down the quilt supplies to me, but not the albatross. I’m feeling a little daunted by the quilt, but also excited to tackle this unexpected challenge.