Labyrinth--OMG Finish

For some reason, I was in fear this quilt was going to break me.  It was my One Monthly Finish goal for March but I allowed myself to fall short of finishing by like an hour and a half of quilting.  I was so mad at the quilt for its non-finish (like it was the quilts fault) I skipped the whole month of April working on it and put it in a (unfair) time out.  May would be its month, when I declared it as my gaol yet again.  So let's recap about this quilt for a second.  Labyrinth is a UFO I pieced quite a few years ago and wanted to wait for a time when I felt I could do the quilting justice.  I dearly loved the blue and brown batiks that went into this quilt.

One of the things I wanted to play with in the quilting of this quilt was feathers.  Stitching those billowing plumes is a skill I have only recently felt comfortable tackling.  Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet.

When I went into motif planning I had hoped to stick them several places.  I auditioned a little bit of everything in each of the sections.

I sorted through my Aurifil stash to find just the right shades for quilting each section.

I decided on Aurifil #1285 Medium Bark, #5011 Rope Beige, #2775 Steel Blue, #1126 Blue Gray, #2310 Light Beige, and #2000 Light Sand.

Quilting started off pretty quickly with dot-to-dot quilting in the center star and the addition of Kathleen's Magic Shape in the surrounding background area.

I wasn't exactly happy with the first attempt with the feathers at the top of the bracket, but it got easier and closer to what I had in mind the more I stitched them.

One of the biggest challenges quilting this quilt, was the fact that Caroline loved it so much.

It was shortly after this picture, I found myself missing my end of March goal date.  I had just finished quilting the tan/beigh and brown borders and hit a wall.

All that was left was more feather plumes in the large blue border, but I was so disappointed that I hadn't completed it and was getting tired of fighting with it in the opening of my machine, I decided to set it aside for a while.  I folded it and set it on the back of the couch with the intentions of coming back to it in a few days.

Okay, try a month later, way longer than I had expected. But I needed that small break.  As soon as I picked it up and started quilting those borders, I started laughing at myself for giving up so easily.  In no time at all they were complete.  I guess I just needed a small amount of distance to work through my road block.  As soon as those borders where finished I tossed it on the floor for a quick shot of the back.

Even though there were lots of points of doubt as it progressed, I think I achieved the look I was wanting all along.  Labyrinth was almost finished.

After attaching the binding I decided to give it a quick bath to remove some of the blue marks from my water soluble pens.  I ran cool water in the bathtub submerged her and left for about 10 minutes.  As soon as I saw the water I knew I needed to act fast.  She immediately when into the washing machine with about 6 color catchers.  Thank goodness I keep them on hand.

After a good soak and spin she was good to go.

I cannot express how good it feels to have this finish behind me.  One UFO gone from quite a large pile of them. Now to decided on the next one to finish.  I set a goal of finishing four this year, but I am quite hopeful I can cross more off than that.

Today I'm linking up with Linky Tuesday, Main Crush Monday and OMG Finish.