At Piece with Time

I'm getting a jump start on my quilt bee for next year.  I lead the bee, so I always have to be a block or three ahead of the girls.  We're doing another Mystery Quilt this year, but I'm at a stopping place on this.  All my blocks are done, as many of them that can be are set, the inner border is pieced and the other two borders are cut out.  Until we're a little further along, there's not a whole lot else left I can do.

So next year - 2014 - the group has agreed to try At Piece with Time designed by Kristin C Steiner and Diane C. Frankenberger.  I love the work these ladies do.  I'm in the final stages of hand quilting A Southern Album Quilt, something I've been working on since 2009.  At Piece With Time is a wonderful "diary" quilt.  Each block has a theme and you're encouraged to journal about it.  And each block represents a particular time period in a woman's life.

I recently became a grandmother.  This fact alone spurred me to make this quilt.  This quilt and the journal may allow my granddaughter to know things about me we may never get a chance to discuss.

Like A Southern Album Quilt, At Piece with Time has a center medallion that is a magnificent riot of applique -- flowers and vines and bees and berries and the cutest birds' nest.  I will begin this before I actually start the blocks.  As a matter of fact, Hop to It (my current obsessive applique) may end up taking a back seat to this for a while.  It would help if I would buckle down and just finish Indian Summer.

I had decided I wanted to do this quilt before I went to Paducah this past April for the AQS show.  I took the book with me and my previously-purchased focus fabric, and bought the rest of the materials.

The bottom striped material is for the borders.  I can't wait to get started!