How Long Does It Take to Make a Quilt?

       When people find out that I’m a quilter, they are always curious about how long it takes me to make a quilt. I hesitate because don’t have a quick, definitive answer.

There are a lot of variables: size, complexity, if there’s a deadline or an open timeline, broken sewing machines, frustration, laziness, you get the picture. 
       Part of it depends on the size of the quilt. I’ve made a wall hanging (about 45” square) in a weekend. If you count a mug rug (about the size of a piece of notebook paper), I can put that together in a under an hour. The most recent quilt that I put the last stitch in, holds the all-time record of the longest time I’ve ever spent making a quilt.

       My new year’s resolution for 2018 was to finish up some of the quilts that I started, but haven’t completed. My plan was to finish one per month. It’s April and I just completed my third quilt.

       This quilt wasn’t even in my stack of UFOs (UnFinished Objects), but in the wee hours of a night of insomnia when my mind was reviewing a million things, I remembered these particular quilt blocks. I thought it would be quick to whip into an actual quilt that would tie up some loose ends as well as help me catch up to my one quilt a month goal.

       Years ago, I hand stitched several Hawaiian quilt blocks that were intended to be pillow covers. They would be great practice before making a bed sized Hawaiian quilt. These blocks were my first attempts at quilting. I enjoyed making them, but thought how many pillows did I really need? Instead, I would combine them into a quilt.

       Here I was, many, many years later and I’d forgotten how many I'd made. I’d also moved several times since I started stitching them and had forgotten where I stored them in this house. After a few days of digging through the logical places where they should be, I found them in an illogical place, under my long arm machine. 
       I had completed five on white backgrounds: Monstera leaf was dark green, 

               Ulu (or breadfruit) was a pale yellow, 

                              Red Ginger was red, 

                              Orchid was purple,

                             and Hibiscus was red. 

I needed a sixth block to make a quilt three blocks across and two blocks down.

       In totally unrelated news, the deadline to file taxes was looming, so March 18^th was the perfect time to ignore the taxes and start a hand quilting project. 
       In my quest to find the blocks, I’d also found my Hawaiian quilting books, so I thumbed through them looking for my next block: Na Lani Pule (Heavens Prayers). I went to the fabric store and chose a solid deep turquoise Kona cotton for this block.

These blocks are "on point."

       Tucked into the back of one of my Hawaiian quilting books was a sketch on graph paper of my original plan—a grid of blocks, three across and four down. I also recalled thinking about setting them on point. I obviously didn't have time to make seven more blocks. It was time for a revised plan.

Hawaiian Quilt Plan A.

       On April 10th the Na Lani Pule block was complete. I admired it, but not for long. I got down to business on our taxes. After I sent them in, it was back to the Hawaiian quilt blocks up on my design wall.

Na Lani Pule

       I shuffled them around. I didn’t like that there were two red blocks. They were overpowering. The yellow ulu block was too pale. What was I thinking when I chose that lemon yellow? There was barely any contrast.

     I kicked out the red hibiscus. I thought about kicking out the yellow ulu, but it was the second block I’d ever made and Hawaiian quilting tradition says that it should be the first block you make to ensure that you make many more quilts.

       Then I measured the blocks. They varied in size from 19-1/2” squares to the brand new turquoise block that was 17-1/2” square. Why hadn’t I followed my "note to self" to enlarge the pattern by 15% before I started procrastination quilting? I kicked out Na Lani Pule too. It would become a pillow cover along with the red hibiscus block.

  
     There would be four blocks in this quilt, stacked, not on point. It would be a wall hanging. It was a little tricky since the blocks were already quilted. I carefully trimmed them each down to a uniform 18-1/2” square. Then I chose a deep blue cotton like the color of the Pacific Ocean between the Hawaiian Islands for the joining strips.

       As I worked, I tried to recall when I started this project. We were living in Hawaii, renting the bottom floor of a house in Manoa. Although both of my grandmothers made Hawaiian quilts, they weren’t making them when I was around. I should have, but didn’t think to ask them for advice.

       Not only did I “inherit” my love of sewing from my grandmothers, I inherited a complete full size Hawaiian quilt and a partially completed Hawaiian quilt top from Grandma Louise Ralston Keolanui. My auntie also gave me all of her mother's Hawaiian quilt patterns that she had designed herself.

Grandma Keolanui, cousin Jane, Auntie Lani and cousin Judy
with the Queen's Comb quilt that Grandma made.

 

Grandma Ellis holding great grandson Johnny Stark.

From my other grandmother, Grandma Harriet Dwight Ellis, I inherited her in-progress Hawaiian quilt blocks and a sizable fabric and yarn stash.

       When my sister passed away, she and her husband gave me a Hawaiian quilt top from Grandma Keolanui that Cynthia had been working on along with her own fabric stash and what she’d gotten from our grandmothers. The huge size of my stash isn’t surprising. It’s genetic!

       When I’m in Hawaii and drive through the intersection of University Avenue and King Street in Moiliili, I still remember the seemingly endless hours that my sister, brother, cousins, and I spent in Kuni’s Dry Goods store with my Mom, Grandmother, and Aunties while they pored over sewing pattern books and then shopped for fabric.

 If we were good, they’d treat us to crack seed [Chinese preserved plums] scooped out of giant glass jars from the tiny store across the parking lot.

       Instead of asking my grandmothers for quilting lessons, or at least for some tips when I started my first quilt, I relied on the instructions in a kit purchased at Liberty House, a department store that was later bought out by Macy’s.

       The deep green fabric with the Monstera Leaf pattern appealed to me back then. It still does. When I flipped that finished Monstera Leaf block over and looked at the stitching, I shook my head and then snickered a little. There are huge knots all over the back. Back then I knotted my thread by wrapping the thread around my index finger and then rolling it off the end and tugging.

Huge beginner's knots

       Now I make a quilter’s knot by wrapping the thread around the tip of my needle and then sliding it down to the end. It’s a much smaller knot which makes it easier to pop through a layer of fabric, to bury the knot in the batting. The stitches on the front of that block look OK, but they are not even in size. On the back they’re much longer than on the front. It was a good thing I matched my thread color to the forest green of the leaf. My uneven beginner quilt stiches don’t show much.

       On the Ulu block, my second Hawaiian quilt block, the knots on the back still look like tiny beach balls, but the stitching is more even. A darker yellow would've been a better color choice, but I was still a beginner. 
       By the time I stitched the orchid block, in 2002 the quality of my quilting was much improved. I had actually been to two classes to learn how to hand applique and hand quilt. I had also watched Diedra McElroy’s video of That Perfect Stitch and practiced along with her.

Stitching on the back of the orchid block.

 
       Some people would have hidden those weird knots and uneven stitches under another layer of fabric, but I appreciate seeing my progress as a quilter. It tells a story.
       Those first quilt blocks look good together. I'm glad they aren't stowed away in a plastic bin anymore, hidden from view. 

Red hibiscus and Na Lani Pule blocks
 made into pillow covers.

       

Quilt label

Backs of the Hawaiian quilt pillows
made with fabrics from my sister Cynthia's stash.

If my first quilting attempts were a bit surprising, so was the realization that my long held claim that I started quilting in 1999 is wrong. That is when I started machine quilting. But I actually started quilting by hand, and my best guess is that I picked up a quilting needle in 1983. That means this quilt took me 35 years to make! I don’t think I’ll mention that number the next time someone asks me how long it takes to make a quilt.

Laura Keolanui Stark is starting her next “quilt of the month” tomorrow. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.