I’m teaching my kid to drive right now, and the DMV requires teens to log 50 practice hours before getting their license. So, while I had planned to spend the bulk of my week-long vacation at the end of the year working on my quilt, I’ve instead spent a fair amount of time sitting in the passenger seat of my own car and discussing the finer points of lane changes.
By the end of my vacation, I’d accomplished very little in the way of quilting. I got this block done in the last few minutes of 2019 – literally – in a last ditch effort to come close to meeting my goal of 30 blocks in 2019. Of course, this was number 27, so there wasn’t a chance of meeting the actual goal, but at least I’d be able to say I got 90% of the way there.
As I frantically stitched, I was recalling the end of the previous year, when I was scrambling to finish my first corner block and meet my goal of 30 blocks in 2018. I had met the goal then – why couldn’t I do it in 2019? I was beating myself up about not meeting my goal this year; then I started beating myself up for beating myself up about it.
The worst part was, when I went back to look at 2018, I realized that I’d only completed 27 blocks in 2018 as well. Maybe 30 blocks per year is too ambitious at this point in my life, what with driving lessons and other time-sucking distractions. If I adjust my yearly goal, I may have to change the punchline of my running joke about this quilt’s completion date though.
Even though I was reflecting negatively on my ability to meet my quilting goals, I was able to reflect positively on how easy this block was. A year ago, I would have felt like this block was almost too challenging, with all those inset seams, but I made half a dozen blocks in 2019 with this kind of set-in piece on the side, and it’s old hat now.
In this block, I decided to attach the pointy pieces to the center first, then inset all four side pieces. Here is the assembled center “star” section, ready to have the side pieces set in:
I got this part done while visiting my folks over Christmas, so you get a bonus, never-before-seen, tabletop background in the photo.
Setting the side pieces went in pretty quickly after that, but then I dragged my feet for days on the last step: appliquéing on those four diamonds.
Which brings us to the mad scramble on New Year’s Eve, to finish those last few bits of appliqué and get marginally closer to my goal. Maybe once my teenager chauffeuring duties are no longer required, I will magically have fewer distractions and more free time for quilting again. I’ll let you know how that goes.