07 November 2007

Slow-quilting-math

Well. Hand-quilting is slow work. And I will no doubt bore you to tears with my moanings about it in the months to come.
And when I work on something this slow, I like to have an idea about when my tribulations will be over, so I've been doing some math on the Allsorts Applique-album, trying to gauge how long I'll be quilting this one. Here it is :

There are 96 blocks and a border.
Now, if the border - quilting-wise - equals another round of blocks, the total would equal 10 x 14 blocks, and that gives me the equivalent of 140 blocks, each of them 6" square (and that is including the sashing) to quilt.
So far, the average number of threads involved in quilting one block is 3, so a fair estimate of the total is 420 threads.

If I do an average of one thread a day, it will therefore take me 420 days from start to finish, and that will mean something like 14 months from quilting was started, until its finished, putting the finish right around Christmas of 2008.
IF, however, I do an average of a block pr. day, the finish-line will be around the end of March 2007.
Now, I could choose to become depressed over this, but I've tried that and it really isn't very conducive to progress. I did it with QD, and the enormity of the task (trimming the blocks, joining the sashing and getting it all together) made me stop completely in my tracks for close to a year ! If I had just trimmed one block every day, and/or joined one sashing-star every day, it would have been finished long before it was :-)
And with that lesson still alive in my mind, I will not despair, but persevere.
I will quilt (at least) one thread a day, and keeping that up, it will be finished. Yes, it will take time, but it will happen.
I will, however, aim for quilting an average of 1 block a day, and if I can keep that up, it will be a finished quilt (quilted, bound and signed) by Easter 2008. A noble goal, surely :-) Not realistic if life starts happening too much around my ears, but ... every day where I quilt a full block, and not "just" one thread, is 2 days less quilting in the end.
So : finish-line on the Allsorts is anywhere between Easter and Christmas, 2008.

I'll keep you posted :-)

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