Pickle Dish a Completed Top!

Wowsers... it's official. My Pickle Dish Insanity is finally a completed quilt top! The days have been overcast and a bit gloomy at times so I'm having a terrible time getting a full-on shot of the entire quilt. Guess you'll have to make to with the pictures that didn't get sent to delete button paradise!

Pickle Dish Insanity

I wondered for a long time whether or not the strippy side borders would make it into this particular quilt. They seemed a bit over the top, but as soon as the inside of the quilt was finished, it became obvious why the strips were included. Without them, the pickle dishes looked unconstrained and actually, perhaps a bit lost. Maybe if the quilt wasn't so scrappy, the borders wouldn't be necessary?

A few rumples, but nothing that won't quilt out...

This quilt was started in December of 2012 after realizing that I'd basically pulled the same stack of fabrics out of my totes for the third time. Hmm.. Time to put those pieces together and see what they are wanting to tell me! On impulse I started cutting the pieces for this crazy, insane, momentous quilt. It just seemed like the right time and perhaps even, the right fabrics? although I didn't stop to agonize over that as I figured it'd be hard to ruin these particular fabrics.

Still so amazed that I got this far!

The pickle dish/wedding ring pattern is one that I've loved and adored forever, but been completely terrified to make. For Christmas of 1998, my mom gave me a gift certificate for a class on making wedding ring quilts. Okay. Wow! After the excitement tapered off I quickly broke out in cold chills because, well... 1. Along with the gift certificate was my very first rotary cutting mat and rotary cutter and little 'ol me with zero experience at using them. 2. The class(es) were an hour away. At night. In January. And I had a junker car, little money for fuel and we do live in snow country. Whew....  3. Then there was the little matter of having a baby less than a year old and me a nursing mother. I could not even fathom how that would work for three or four 2-hr. classes plus the hour drive both directions.

I might have cried about it a little. Pulled my hair. And it didn't help matters that my entire family thought I was nuts to not just jump all over the opportunity. Can anyone say 'overwhelmed?' I don't dive into the deep end people unless I know how to swim!! Those were just the immediate things that I started panicking about, but almost every quilter alive will sympathize with the fact that I was NOT at all ready to be taking a wedding ring class with my current level of experience. It still makes me laugh. Needless to say, I had to cancel my gift certificate and buy fabric instead. My mom apologized for her enthusiasm and I dealt with a mishmash of emotion ranging from a huge amount of relief to bitter disappointment.

Love the look of the scrappy melons

So it's always been in the back of my mind. On my quilty bucket list. Something to climb up to and conquer! You know, with a little bit of baggage to make things even more interesting.*wink

The scary hairy part of cutting off the extra bits...

After the quilt top was together, then I still had to cut the extra bits off the appliqued squares. I started doing that at night and then immediately realized that my middle aged eyes were not very trustworthy with a pair of scissors and about a million hours of sewing work. So crazy to take a quilt this complicated and then say, hey! How bout you whack at it with a pair of scissors now? lol  But now this part is done and I'm so very happy. You really have no idea unless maybe you're a quilter too.