Friday Finish/ALYOF - Turning Twenty Kissing Booth

To love or not to love that is the question.  The quilt I'm showing you today has a long story behind it and it has come/gone/come again in my liked category.  Last year Sharla and I went to the Dallas Quilt show on Friday, which was just a mad house.  We were overwhelmed by the crowds, the quilts and the stuff for sale. But Sharla found the kissing booth turning twenty kit and purchased it.  I will admit I was a little jealous, because I really loved the colors, but didn't see the need for us to have matching quilts. We decide to go back on Sunday afternoon, hoping to have less people (and it was so much better) and look at some things we couldn't get to on Friday. We passed the kissing booth quilt again, and I stopped to look at it.  Sharla could see I liked it, so she told me to buy it.  What did it matter if we had matching quilts.  During the next month, I found backing fabric for both quilts and then they just sat and sat and sat.  For fabrics we both loved, they didn't get much attention. Now to be fair Sharla went into the hospital, and was pretty sick and we had the floors redone, and general life happened.

Still with me...told you it would be long.  In March Sharla decided she wanted to work on hers, so we pulled it out and cut it out.  While cutting hers I decided I wanted to do mine as well.  Playing with those fabrics just made me happy.  She finished hers and I quilted it.  And then I finished my top.  I was so happy with it, I loved the colors.  So it was time to put it on the long arm and quilt it.  That is when this quilt took a hit.

Yes some how I got a major wrinkle on the back that I saw as I was advancing the quilt.  I was heart broken.  There was no way to fix it on the machine...well none that I could figure out.  So I took it off the long arm and began the process of picking out the quilting.  Now I was beginning to not love this quilt nearly as much...ok maybe I was beginning to even dislike it. Picking out the quilting was a very tedious process, and in doing so the quilt got a lot of lint all over it. I finished it last Sunday and it went onto the Avante.

As I quilted it, I was constantly having to pick link and thread off of it.  I even ran a lint roller over it, but it didn't help.  I just wanted it done.  I got it quilted and bound and when I was done I didn't love it anymore. And that made me sad.  As I always do I washed it when it was done.  And this morning when I pulled it out of the dryer, I loved it again.  All the lint was gone (well 95%) of it, and it was crinkly and smelled so good. The poor lint trap was packed.

I used Signature's Cotton Candy thread, which is a lovely mix of pink, purple and orange, that blended well with the fabrics.  I did my typical all over meander.  I did find a nick in the binding, but I'm just mending it.  I am just so glad it is done and that I love it again.

Will this be my all time favorite quilt ever, probably not, but I know I will use it for years to come.  And it will be a reminder to me to stick with it, because in the end I will be happy that I completed it.

This quilt was my major goal for A Lovely Year Of Finishes - April.  And yeah I got it done!!!  I have also completed a quilt per week so far and should finish one next Monday as well.  What I haven't completed is the test quilt, but I have all the HST done and hope to work on it this weekend.

So today I'm linking up with my normal Friday crew... Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Link a Finish Friday @ Richard and Tanya Quilts, TGIFF...at A Quilting Reader's Garden,  Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts and Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric Studio.  And also with the Finishing Party at ALYOF at BitterSweet Designs.