I Can Hardly Believe It Myself!

So, when I started my personal UFO challenge a while ago...it was one specific quilt that I had in mind that I really needed to finish.

Now, I've only been quilting since 2005/2006, so I don't have a ton of UFOs that have been hanging around for a long time. But, this one...well this one has been almost four years in the making.

After Mr. Gnomemade graduated with his Master's, we accompanied his parents for a 2+ week to Italy. I had never been, and it was a wonderful experience. We had the chance to visit Florence, Sorrento and Rome, along with areas all around those three cities. We had a great trip, and I was greatly appreciative to his family for the opportunity for such a great trip.

Mr. Gnomemade's mother had subtlely asked a couple times about me making her a quilt, and their house is full of photos, so I figured that would be the perfect marriage...hence this quilt was born.


Now, it's been a labor...mainly of love, but I'd be lying if there weren't times I just wanted to throw this out of the window. First, it was about trying to pick out which photos I wanted to use. Now, that shouldn't be too hard - but Mr. Gnomemade is the quintessential tourist, and I think we have about 900 photos from our trip. Then it was onto designing the layout. Then, I had to figure out how to print photos onto fabric...and that was an ordeal for quite a while. Some of the printer photo fabric worked well...another package of it...not so much. Picking the rest of the fabric wasn't too hard - my now Mother-In-Law loves gold and burgundy.




So, it went for about 3 1/2 years. I'd pick it up, then put it back down. Sew some more, get frustrated and then put it away for a while. I really worked on it ine arnest over the past two years, especially once I found the perfect backing fabric.

I mean, isn't it perfect? It's a fabric of major Italian landmarks. We had seen quite a bit on our trip and I thought it was great.

The rest of it eventually came together and I finished up the binding in March. Yup...March of 2011. We went to Italy in June of 2007. Don't judge too harshly.

It was hand delivered to my in-laws in April when we went up to see them for a wedding of a close friend.

They seemed to like it and I'm just happy to cross this one of the list - and that it made it through the washer.