Raksha Bandhan!!!

As I already told you all, today is Raksha Bandhan... The day to celebrate the relationship between brothers and sisters... I am very lucky to have 3 brothers (the closest) to dote on me... Even my other 4 first cousins equally pamper me...

A quilty post for Raksha Bandhan... Today I'd like to tell you all the story of a quilt - one which I gave to my brother as a gift... I had joined Elizabeth's (Ohfransson) Paint Box Quilt Along... With the kind of fabric available here, I was not really sure how far I could make it... But I decided to give it a go...

I raided the local markets and got fabric... I had to look for 40 solids with co-ordinating prints... I looked for monochromatic ones but could not find it... So I gave up and just looked for prints that went well together...

Coming back with 80 quarter yard pieces, bought from 6 different shops, but I spent only about 500 bucks for it (Thats like 10 US$)  i started feeling I had taken up too much... But I decided to try it and try it honestly...

I had NEVER made a quilt from blocks before... I had NO experience of attaching sashing... I was scared of even trying it...

But I did fine... Mom was in the hospital for a few days and I went over to stay with her for 10 days... It was during this period that I cut up my blocks... Sitting in the hospital, both of us spent a long time talking to each other... The doctor was afraid that the tumor in her uterus might be malignant... After the biopsy, for 2 days, I spent every moment with her thinking, I might not get another chance like this... (The doctor was proven wrong,  thank god! She  was thinking it was Stage 3 or Stage 4 Cancer). All through the time that we spent together, I cut my fabrics... I did not have a rotary cutter then, I had to mark EVERY fabric and cut it individually with scissors... Somehow, it was therauptic during those stressful moments...

Our fears proven wrong, I came back home with all my blocks ready to go... It was then that I realized that I had cut them to make a wrong size! Elizabeth had said 6" x 6" finished blocks, mine were 8" x 8" finished!!! I decided to go ahead and make a large quilt!

I pieced the blocks together with quite some difficulty... The sashings did not match... The block sizes varied, though I had tried really hard to trim them down to the right size... But working without a rotary cutter is quite difficuly...

After spending a lot many days agonizing about how bad the top was, I decided to go ahead and quilt it, because I wanted to keep the quilt as a special memory... I quilted it using straight lines... I had no option, I did not have my bernette then... The straight (almost straight)lines are about an inch apart...

I bound the quilt using all my leftover solid scraps... Then when I had laid it out on the floor to try and photograph it, my kiddo walked in... He took one look at it, ran onto it and smiled...

"Mamma, he pangrun khup chan ahe. Mala awadla!"

(Mamma, this quilt is beautiful. I like it!)

I forgot every mistake that I had made in this quilt... I forgot the agony that evey non-matching sashing strip had brought... I forgot every single mistake and looked beyond... I saw that I had taken it up and completed it...

I decided then that I will give it a go again, sometime later... And I will... Someday...

Chaitanya loved this quilt, and I gave it to him as a gift... The memories associated with the quilt were too precious to let anyone else have it... This quilt will always be special to me... For years to come!!!

Cheers!!!

And yeah, wish you all a very happy Raksha Bandhan!!!