Finishing's Cool - Marianne Fons

As a quilt maker for more than 30 years, I’ve had the pleasure of completing scores of projects—full size quilts, twin bed quilts, wall quilts, baby quilts, doll quilts, and miniatures. 

Like every quilter, I love thinking about quilt designs, buying fabric, and starting new pieces. I hesitate to reveal to other quilters that I've finished every quilt I've ever started.
 
Honestly, I’m no more organized than anyone else—it’s just that my relationship with quilting has been professional rather than recreational. I'm usually designing for a purpose, whether for a book, a magazine issue, a class, an episode of "Love of Quilting" for public TV, or, these days, a Quilt of Valor for a combat veteran. See www.QOVF.org for more about Quilts of Valor.

The necessity of finishing has saved me from the guilt many quilters carry around, guilt that has spawned UFO (UnFinished Object) nights at club meetings as well as quilting community dialogs about whether one is a process person or a project person. 

For me, finishing a quilt is not only a familiar stage in the process, but my very favorite part.

Generally, I make my quilts by machine rather than by hand, so they are machine pieced, machine appliqued, and machine quilted. I stitch the binding on by machine as well.

The final stage is turning the folded edge of the binding over from the front to the back and stitching it down by hand. If the weather is fine and I can do my hand stitching on my front porch rocker, I'm in heaven.

As I stitch, I bask in the joy of completion. If the quilt is intended for someone, I think about the pleasure of the upcoming reveal.

Generally as I stitch, I’m thinking about next quilt I will start.

Marianne Fons


The Fiber Nation would like to extend a huge thank you to  Marianne for guest writing!