. . . or perhaps I should say “My Next Quilt Finish.” Today I pulled a UFO out of my sewing room closet that’s been waiting in the wings for — oh, the last six years (!) and put a border on it:

This Unfinished Object dates back to 2015, when I took a class from Joyce Gieszler on Grandma’s Surprise, the quilt pattern featured in her book Then and Now Quilts (Kansas City Star Quilts, 2014). In 2015 Joyce’s colorful version using cotton+steel fabrics had set Pinterest ablaze . . .

. . . but it was her three-color version shown on the right that I had fallen for:

Her class was great fun and I made my top pretty quickly, eking out a border of the background fabric with just enough left over to cut binding strips so the image would float. The quilt top finished at 57″ square. Because I like to piece my quilt backs, I put the project on the back burner while waiting for inspiration to strike.

Well, you know what they say: time marches on for all of us. Suddenly, 2021 was well underway and I had never gotten around to the backing. Today, when I pulled the quilt top out to take a look, I decided I wanted it to be a bit larger and added a border of the black leafy print. Now it measures 66″ square, a really nice size for a throw or lap quilt.

And the backing? Some time ago I had purchased a piece of 118″ wide backing fabric in a pale grey leafy print. In the spirit of “get ‘er done!,” why not forget the pieced backing and just make a backing out of one piece? I got ready to cut the 74″ square I needed for the backing — longarmers like the backing to be 4″ larger on all sides — and then discovered a 3″ tear in a spot which made it impossible to cut the backing from one piece.

Boohoo!

It looks like a pieced backing is in the cards after all.