Grandma's quilt- finishing it

Working on Grandma's quilt was quite fun.  Most of it was finished at Quilts Plus a local quilt store during Friday Night Finishers.  It was a fun group of ladies that got together once or twice a month on Friday evening to work on quilts and chat.  A few other projects got thrown in while working on this quilt.  One day T. needed to head over to a member of the guild's house to sign up her quilts in the local show.  She asked if I wanted to come along with her.  I should mention this was on the very last day to sign a quilt up for the show.  Once at the house T says you should sign up your quilt.  I say no it is not that close to finished but with both T. and J's encouragement I agreed.  I had to pick out a name and guess at the size.  I pick out Grandma's serenity, since I was still thinking spa quilt.  I had to leave blank the space on who would quilt it.  There was no way I had time to finish the quilt and learn to machine quilt it in time.  The next day I am on the phone trying to see if someone will quilt it for me.  After 2 or 3 too busy answers I thought there was no chance this is going to happen.  Then S mentions Kathy I call her and she agrees to fit me in.  That was it I needed to finish.  I worked as hard as I could and in about 1 week I had it ready.  I really thought I would lay the blocks out different and play around with it more but time was pressed and I followed the pattern lay out in the book.  Once it was put together I saw how much fun this quilt was and I thought I have picked the wrong name the quilt should be beach party or something like that.  I head over to Kathy's house to drop the quilt off.  We talk over what I am thinking about and she had a new pattern she had not tried called beach party and I knew that was the one.  We looked at thread and agreed a nice light aqua blue would look great.  I relaxed and knew my quilt was in great hands.
About 2 or so weeks later I get my quilt back.  I head to T's apartment and we talk about the binding.  I decide to make a pieced binding well because I had enough taupe piece left over and didn't go to the store and pick up enough of one color.  I really liked the way the pieced binding looked and did my first bit of hand sewing putting on the binding.  T helped me put it on and her stitches looked so much better than mine but by the end of putting on the binding I could certainly see improvements and as much as I dreaded the hand work it turns out I love it.  It was so nice sitting on the couch and still be stitching away.  The quilt was done label and all.  I put the quilt in a pillowcase and turn it in for the show.
A few days later we head to school where the show was and I got a chance to see my first finished quilt hanging up.  I even heard a few ladies say they liked my quilt!  I walked about and saw some amazing quilts.  I was glad my quilt got finished and was able to hang with all the others.

                                                                            
A bit later my sister took the quilt with her to my Grandma's.  She loves it and it really matches well in her living room.    It was quite a quick finish but I am really glad it all came together.

Happy Quilting

CDC