Red, White, Blue Lightening Streak Quilt and Duffel Bags

When my son took his star quilt to college, I determined to sew a new quilt for college, so the star quilt could stay home.

I found a quilt pattern which had lots of energy and movement yet looked quite easy.

When I showed it to my son, he liked it a lot.

Starting the quilt in November, I hoped to have it ready for Christmas.

OVERCOME BY MYSTERY ILLNESS

However, I was overcome with a mystery illness for most of December.

Practically sleeping through December, I slowly regained strength in the New Year.

Thankfully, I had done some Christmas shopping long before Christmas for everyone, but this quilt was my son’s main Christmas present.

The day before Christmas I had my son haul all the gift bags and tissue paper upstairs to where I store the presents.

I sat on a stool and barely endured stuffing gift bags and tagging them, I felt so awful.

By then I was on a z-pack but it never seemed to work.

Also, I knew many gifts were missing, but I had no recollection of where they could possibly be.

However, I found a gorgeous box to present the quilt pieces I had so far accomplished for my son to open on Christmas Day, so he could see how far I had gotten.

When I started feeling about 50% better in January, I sat and carefully marked and pinned pieces.

Finally February came and I was about 75% better, so I was able to lay all the blocks out! (see header photo)

My side was still quite sore from all the coughing in December and January, so I did not feel like rotary cutting and sewing strips and cutting triangles, but slow movement is good so I just took my time.

For the hand quilting I decided to feature the zig zag by stitching it in white in the seamlines of the red and white zig zags.

Then I repeated it in blue in the field of blue, which is subtle but nice.

I finished the final stitch minutes before I left the house to bring my son home for Spring Break.

I laid the quilt on his bed for him to see when he came home…then I placed the other Christmas gifts that I finally stumbled upon in the living room for a belated Christmas.