My "Indiana Snail's Path" quilt

Once upon a time, a very long time ago...well, let's see it has to be around 15 years  ago now....I started a quilt for my son when we repainted his bedroom.  He recently turned 28 years old and hasn't lived at home for eight years.  Do you have any projects like that?

At the time, he had white walls adorned with M.C. Escher drawings, black furniture, gray carpet, and decided he wanted a solid black/solid white adaptation of the quilt from the cover of this book:

Since I grew up in Indiana, I thought it was kind of neat that  he had unknowingly picked the "Indiana Puzzle".  However, another name for this block is called the "Snails Tail".  If you have had teenage boys... well,  let's just say, I was smiling inwardly at the irony. Some days you feel like you are dealing with snails....

After discussing the pattern a bit we decided we wanted to find a different way to finish off the edge of the quilt and I showed him the pattern below (no longer in print?):

He liked how the edges of the quilt were "solid" so he wanted me to take the solid black out to the edge of his quilt just as it  is in the picture.  OK.  I can do that.

But solids, really?  I was sure I could talk this teenager into making it scrappy blacks and whites.  Being very artistic, he surely would see how much more interesting that would be. No can do.  Solids it was.  To be sure I had the same white and black throughout the quilt I ordered a bolt of each since I wasn't sure what I would use on the back and figured I would use the leftovers of either color in future projects.

I decided to paper pieced and printed out the number of patterns I would need. Life interfered in different ways and the project sat for almost 11 years.   Figuring that over the years he surely lost interest, I occasionally would ask him, "Do you still want "that" quilt?"....."Yes, Mom, I still want "that" quilt."

So, a few years ago I started on it and I haven't gotten too far.  I really would like to finish this quilt  this year.  The picture below shows my progress so far.  The blocks are not sewn together and still have the paper attached; some are trimmed and some are not. (I am aware that the bottom block is incorrect and will fix it.)

My husband keeps asking, "How are you doing on the "Drunkard's Path" quilt?!  He realizes that blocks have different names and for some reason he has confused this one with the Drunkard's Path! No way would I make a Drunkard's Path quilt for our son.

So, we have the Indiana Puzzle, Snail's Tail, Drunkard's Path Quilt.

I will get it done.  My son told me not too long ago...."I know you will, Mom.  And by then...it should be absolutely outstanding." :)

No pressure.

Judy

Oh, and something else that is Black and White and worth seeing....the movie "The Artist" that is playing in the theatre now.  We went to see it on Saturday.  It's a silent movie.