My sad little UFO

I haven't been quilting long enough to have a stack of them, as some people seem to have. I only have one, but it weighs pretty heavily on me.

This is an alphabet quilt I started for my daughter.

When I was pregnant with her and planning her nursery, I settled on purple pansies. I'm not sure how or why, but I did and it was gorgeous. I painted her walls a periwinkle, and set about finding appropriate purple pansy stuff. Which wasn't easy. But I did. A lamp, a clock, a stuffed Hello Kitty, some decals that I put on her garbage can and on white letters that I attached to her wall above her bed. The biggest find was a fleece blanket. I cut it down to about 4' x 6', bought some coordinating fleece and a huge zipper and made a giant pillow for her floor. It was the size of a rug, obviously, and gave her a great place to play on her hardwood floors. The pattern was an adorable teddy bear surrounded by purple pansies. Add white furniture and fixtures, and I was very pleased.

The problem is that kids change so darn quickly. In the time between me planning this quilt, and getting this far, she went from a toddler sleeping in a toddler bed and not knowing her ABCs to a pre-schooler sleeping in a twin sized bed singing the alphabet more than I even wanted her to. And that pre-schooler had different ideas about what should go in her room. Princesses and Scooby Doo overtook the pansies.

This all happened in about 6 months time.

I have a list of problems with finishing this quilt. The biggest being that it no longer represents who she is. Another being that since what you see is only about 30" x 45", I can't figure out an attractive way to add enough borders to make a twin size quilt. And finally, I've made a mistake that tires me to think of re-doing.

I had never done sashing on the diagonal before and miscalculated how long to make it. I have enough fabric to re-do, but it's hard to find the motivation when there are so many other issues with the quilt.

But on the pro-side of finishing it, I do absolutely love it. I think the fabric and syle are beautiful. I think I did a good job of appliquing the letters. I've tried to talk myself into finishing it as a wall hanging. I've tried to talk myself into finishing it to sell - I simply can't do that. It has too much meaning to me, representing her toddlerhood the way it does.

When my friend Mandy was over a few weeks ago, I was showing her a quilt top my grandmother had made but never quilted, and she encouraged me to finish this thing - to not let my daughter be showing this to her friend 40 years from now and lamenting the fact that it was never finished. She's right, but for now the pros & cons seems to be balancing each other out & it just sits here. A sad little quilt that hasn't quite gotten to be.