finally fractal | a quilt for Matt

Many years ago I told Matt I wanted to make a quilt for the studio (the room at the back of our house that used to be a screened in three season room that we converted to a studio for blueflash). I was going to use a camera pattern I found for free somewhere, but I wasn't that enthusiastic about the plan and I kept putting it off. Then he started using the studio less and less and it didn't really make sense to make a quilt for the studio anymore, but I still wanted to make a quilt for him and he felt like I owed him one, haha. He said he wanted it to have something to do with math? I was very confused and uninspired. We scrolled through the vastness of the internet and eventually he found a sketch of a fractal in rainbow colors that he liked. I was surprised by his choice because I expected him to want something a lot more subdued, but I started sketching and shopping for fabric. The quilt I planned for would be pretty big so it was overwhelming. I had to deal with cutting pieces of fabric that were much bigger than what I usually work with and I kept getting stuck on partial seams. Typically I like to work without a pattern and see how things turn out, but this was working without a pattern and needing the quilt to turn out exactly as it should because, well, fractals and math in general, I guess. Matt ended up having to help me figure out the ratios because I kept cutting the pieces just slightly too small. Once I got to the larger pieces I was still getting stuck and I can't remember why, but I took all my supplies and went to my friend Lorraine's house because I've never brought her a sewing dilemma that she can't solve. Sure enough, she figured everything out and we finished the quilt top that night. I planned on loading it onto her long arm machine to quilt it but I realized the minky back fabric that Matt wanted would poke through and likely end up ruining the top, so I took it home and mentally prepared for quilting a gigantic quilt on my home machine. I decided to quilt a spiral to contrast with the hard lines and angles of the top. It turned out mostly okay but the quilt is so heavy that I struggled to get smooth lines at first. The most important thing is that it's done! For years, any time Matt saw me work on a project other than his quilt (which was 95% of the time) he would ask, "is that my quilt?" and I always told him no. It became a joke between us, and eventually I was so annoyed by the question that I told him that when the quilt was finally done I was going to dump it unceremoniously in his lap, and that's exactly what I did!