When I was still on campus at Penn State, my dad came to pick me up for a weekend at home. On our way, we got talking about my quilts. I had started making one in my dorm room to "de-stress" a little. Somewhere along the way, he mentioned that he would like me to make him a quilt someday. I must have been looking for another project because this led to an impromptu stop at the store to buy some fabric. I remember how fun it was to pick out fabric with my dad, especially since it was for him. Everyone's taste in fabric is a little bit different and it's fun figuring out what someone else will like. Not only did my dad pick out great colors, here even gave a little input on the design! Who knew he had such an eye!
I started working on the quilt shortly after, my dad convinced he would soon have a beautiful, completed quilt made by his precious daughter to have and to hold for ever and ever...(hold back laughter here).
Well I cut the fabric wrong. Really wrong. I was trying to figure out how to piece together this beautiful star, not realizing that all I needed to do was create a bunch of half square triangles. I'm pretty sure I cried when I realized it was all wrong so I did what we humans often do with our mistakes: I put it in a box in a closet I don't open very often.
Fast forward to spring of 2020. I'm telling my dad about all of these unfinished quilts that I've finished and how by the end of the year, I won't have any quilts left undone. He got excited and said "does that mean I'll be getting my quilt too!?!?".
For a second, a brief second, I was a little upset. He had caused me to remember the disappointment, the sadness, the regret. I was doing a really great job at forgetting, so much so that it hadn't even made the list of quilts to finish in 2020. But the look on his face and the way he went on and on about how he thought he was going to get a quilt from me and how he paid for the fabric....this vintage star became number 16.
To fix my mistake, I re-cut all of the fabric to make my half square triangles. This, unfortunately, did not leave me with enough fabric to make the original design. So, the star is a bit smaller than intended and there is no border, but it IS finished. It might not look good on a bed, but it WILL match his living room pretty perfectly.
It's not perfect but some would say that it's perfectly imperfect. I can't wait to hand deliver this long anticipated quilt on my next trip up to Williamsport.
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