How The HaHa Quilt Came to Be

Yay for me! This Solids Challenge quilt is finally, finally, finally at completed quilt top stage. Whew! It only took 2 1/2 years. If you remember, back in June, I mentioned cutting the border triangles a little too large. That promptly took me to the next challenge, what to do for an intermediate border?

The middle border

Somehow I ended up with the idea to sew a HaHa border based on a gorgeous quilt over at Nifty Quilts. That left me with a small coping border in between the HaHa's and the middle of the quilt that had to be addressed.

Contemplating using red...

I auditioned different colors, quickly realizing that it was going to have to be a neutral to play nice. Red was definitely a no go.

Black is too stark

 As was black and gray.

Gray is too 'meh'

And much to my internal resistance, white was the obvious choice. You may think that my instinctive balking is odd, but I'm just not into all those stark 'white' quilts that are so popular. Like the only color that responds wonderfully to COLOR, is a non-color.

And white makes perfect sense....

 So I earnestly set my biases aside and sewed the quilt top together with the white inner coping border. Honestly, I almost just left the entire triangle border completely off! Doesn't the first picture look wonderful 'as is'? But then the quilt would be too small to do anything much with and the thought of all those wasted triangles just made me feel queasy.

Another square quilt!

So I forged ahead and yes, it felt good to have the triangles sewing together nicely. Sometimes I seriously start doubting my math skills and it's good to have a reminder that I can occasionally do something right! lol

It looks positively lovely in some light....

And the more I looked at my quilt, the more it started feeling okay again. Maybe the outside borders weren't a giant mistake after all.

The HaHa border was a good decision

I've changed the name of this quilt to the 'HaHa' quilt. It sorta named itself and seems more appropriate now than ever. Such a challenge all the way through! My family thinks the HaHa blocks are very weird and strange, but then they don't get the connection to an antique quilt or my crazy fumbles and missteps through the entire evolution of the quilt.

I think it might already be growing on me....

I wish the green triangles framed the quilt all the way around as they look best next to the HaHa blocks. That's what happens though when ideas have to be changed and tinkered with halfway through! I'm very excited to fold this quilt up and have it languish a good long while in the quilt top drawers. Maybe when I pull it back out in a few months or a year, I'll have a new found appreciation for it? In the meantime, I'm making a big 'ol check mark next to one of my most prioritized goals for this year. The Solids Challenge quilt top is DONE! Never, ever give up or you'll never get where you're going.....