Row by Row House Quilt

One of the quilt guilds I am a part of is in the midst of an Unfinished Object (UFO) challenge with a neighbouring quilt guild. The way this challenge works is every UFO that gets finished is given some points, depending on how long it's been since it was started. The winning guild is to host our annual year-end dinner in June.

Row by Row by Beaumont Quilting Buddies

The oldest UFO I have is one that was started way back at the turn of the century - 2001. The group of quilters I was part of at that time decided to do a Row by Row Round Robin quilt. Each person began the process by making a row and deciding a theme or colour for their quilt. When their row was completed, the row (and maybe some fabric) was passed on to the next person on the list. Every month we were to pass on the rows and by the end of the process, each person would have a quilt with a row done by everyone in the group.

Ann's row of houses

This is the row that I did to start. I liked the yellow for the windows as it looks like there is a light shining out like someone is home. I moved in 2002 and lost track of who had my quilt and whether or not progress was being made on it (and the others!)

Sherry's Row houses

This row was added by Sherry and represents the cookie cutter houses that were in her neighbourhood when her husband and she bought their first home.

Deb's scrappy houses

A row of scrappy houses make up the row by Deb S. I love this row - fabrics are completely random and remind me of my friend and how she can pull together something beautiful out of diverse and random fabrics.

Deb's barns & Ann's flying geese

And the other Deb in our group gave me some barns for my horses. The variety in fabrics and the thoughtfulness in including a piece of my life was such an awesome surprise when I received the quilt rows back in 2009.

The quilt was a pretty good width, but I wanted it longer so I added some flying geese in a blue prairie sky - a regular sight in our southern Alberta sky, especially during spring and fall migration.

And a finish (16 years!)

I added borders, and the outer border fabric was just slightly too short without having to piece, so I added a little 9-patch in the corners - a good solution to a common problem of not quite enough fabric.

And then, this quilt sat for a few years waiting for me to quilt it. And with this UFO challenge, I decided to send it to Marie of Blueberry Hill Quilts to quilt it so I could show it as a finished quilt and get some points for our guild out of it. I just have to add a hanging sleeve and then it will be hanging on my quilt rack where I can enjoy it and the memories it brings back of a great group of quilters!

I love quilts that tell stories and this one tells me one of friendship, diversity and the good feeling when something gets completed.

--Ann