Finish the Race

 

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

1 Corinthians 9:24,25

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Hebrews 12:1

For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:6-8

The pattern for this quilt is actually called Alberta. When I first purchased it, I assumed it was named after our beautiful province. But that puzzled me when I realized that the pattern came from the United States, and I really doubted an American designer would name a quilt pattern after a Canadian province. Alberta is also a woman's name, though not a common one, and I wondered if that was what this pattern was named after. It wasn't until I was actually working on this quilt that I determined to find out. When I went to the company's page, I found that were several quilt designs that were named uncommon women's names. That puzzle solved. 

However, I had no desire to name a quilt for a man an uncommon woman's name. If I was doing the quilt in the colours of the province of Alberta's flag or other Alberta theme, then I might consider keeping the name Alberta. But the quilt was made for my male cousin in Ontario in red, white and black. A cousin who spent his career as an auto mechanic, loved cars and car racing. So I chose the Speedway pantograph and named the quilt Finish the Race. 

But more importantly, I wanted him to also recognize the spiritual implications of the phrase, "finish the race," as indicated in the scriptures I shared at the beginning of this post. We are all running a race. The prize is eternal life and, unlike secular competitions where only one person can win, we can all win as long as we are faithful to Jesus Christ. 

Now, about the pattern itself. It's a layer cake pattern (layer cakes in the quilting world are packages of 40 or 42 10" squares of fabric), requiring one layer cake of print and one of solid/background. The frustrating thing I find about precut patterns, as I've mentioned previously, is that you don't end up using the full amount of fabric. Why bother with a precut if you end up cutting it up smaller again. In the case of this pattern, the quilter is to put a piece of the print fabric and a piece of the background together and make 2 HST units. One is then to trim the HST units down to 9" square. Personally, I rarely trim anything down. It wastes both time and fabric. However, once I had started trimming them, I had to do it with all of them. If I had to do it over again, I would just make the quilt without trimming the HSTs. The other thing about this pattern is that it recommends the use of the Stripology ruler. Now, the Stripology ruler has its place, but it's big and cumbersome. And I really didn't need it for this project. I found it more difficult to line the blocks up and trim them, and ended up cutting some incorrectly. I put the Stripology ruler away and switched to my 9½" square ruler and used that instead. Much less cumbersome. 

The quilt is now on its way to my cousin. 

As I write this, there is a quilt backing hanging over the bars on my longarm, waiting to be loaded, the batting cut and the quilt to be pressed so that I can quilt it. And another finished quilt top waiting in the queue... So, off to work I go.