{plan b}

Congratulations JILL PESTI of Fort Wayne, Indiana!

After pouring over all of the submissions that came in, something kept us going back to Jill's project. When we look at her quilt, we have a lot of ideas of what we can do with it. And we hope that she will be OK with the fact that her finished quilt is going to look way different than her original....because this one is going to be cut up, and really changed.

We struggled with almost every entry, because we wanted to help everyone fix their 'road-block' so that they could finish their quilt. Some projects have had small things go wrong, and some projects took a wrong turn without anyone knowing it was wrong until it was too late. We do hope that now that you have pulled these projects out of the closet, that you will take another look at them, and maybe ask a quilting friend to help you find a new direction to take with it. When we worked in a quilt shop for 11 years, we would often find quilters bringing in quilts that needed fixing, and I would suggest this for many of you. And good quilt shop should be able to offer you help and assistance in finishing your project into a spectacular quilt.

And from the entries, we have made a few observations.

1. Free download patterns are not always accurate. These patterns are put out there fast and easy, so that you will buy the fabric to make them, but usually no one has been paid to 'test' them.

2. Large blocks of fabric on point, can get wavy. This was the case in several entries. Sometimes if the 'waves' are not too severe, they can be quilted out. But we have noticed that the larger the area is that is 'on point' the easier it is for it to wave out. This is often because of the long stretch of bias in the blocks is being 'pulled' rather than 'fitting in'. So be cautious of these types of projects, because they can really stretch on you.

3. There is always a Plan b. But you might have to totally let go of what the quilt was 'suppose to look like' in order to finish it. And I totally understand how hard this can be. I have had projects that I have had to walk away from for YEARS before I could see them in another light. But it is a very gratifying experience to go back and finish that project. So keep watching here as we reveal Jill's quilt, and we keep you up to date on what is going to happen to it.

-Cori & Myra