Bicycle Quilt

It has been quite a journey to get this bicycle quilt finished although it took only about 20 hours in total to make the quilt.

Last year, the fabrics travelled from Hamilton, MO to Seattle, WA, to Sydney, Australia via San Francisco, CA. As there was still relatively plenty of time, I left it till very late. By the time the quilt should have been made, I was running out of time and my hope of getting the quilt finished was dimmed. But things happened for reasons.... I found some pockets of time to work on it and was almost there, but then, my wonderful Gammill Statler decided to take a break 2 rows short of finishing the quilting.! I frantically sent out an SOS for help. And by this stage, my hope of getting the quilt done was dashed altogether.

 

Soon after, help came from the kindest people in the US and UK whom I have never met, and together with my fantastic dealer at EMCO, my wonderful Gammill Statler came back to life to finish the stitching.... But it was as if I was to be defied and the quilt wasn't supposed to be done in time when I ran out of thread for the binding, 2/3 of the way, at 1am on the day I wanted to give the quilt away as a 60th birthday present, to one of the very few special persons I have come across, up to this point of my life. I unpicked the binding and re-attached it with a different colour thread. To finish off the quilt, I machine-stitched the binding down because there wasn't time for the hand-stitching. I got the quilt done, it was looking beautiful and well-received.... Mission accomplished. :-)