A Year in Quilts Review

Twenty-twelve was a good year to finish quilts. However, some were sadder to finish than others.

When I finally decided to finish the Uninspired Quilt after years of deliberating, it was almost a relief. I mean, spending so much time staring at a completed quilt top and backing and ignoring them as they sat on a shelf staring back at me every time I glanced at my stash was a bit depressing. Seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t finish the damn thing years ago. Okay, so perhaps I do; I hate it. I hate the patterns, the place the fabric was purchased, the reason behind buying the fabric, everything about it annoys the hell out of me. Perhaps 2013 I will find peace with this project.

Then there is the Frog & Fairy Quilt I made for a friend’s long awaited baby. This was such a fun project from start to finish, as I created the characters and printed them out onto fabric and sewed them into a quilt that I thought would be used and cherished by the newborn for years to come. However, sad news arrived mere days before the mother was to give birth. The baby had died. As if that wasn’t horrible enough, she was so far along, she still had to actually give birth to the child. Suddenly this project I had enjoyed creating, turned into a reminder that it would never be used, never be loved, and never be needed. I decided to add another graphic to the back with his name and mail it to the parents anyway.

When I found out a coworker was indeed leaving for college to pursue becoming a veterinarian, I decided to make her a going away quilt. She loves cats, so naturally they would be the focus. Before I knew it, her last day in town was upon us, so I gave her the quilt which made her cry because, well, a couple reasons. First was her realization that she was leaving. Second was because the day before she found out she was pregnant, which she knew would put a damper on her six-year plan. As it is, this Going Away Quilt will now be the baby’s first quilt come March when he or she is born. And her six-year plan? It’s been extended by a few months as she is taking next semester off and going back in the fall.

And the crowning jewel of the quilts I finished this year is The Fall Quilt. I love everything about this quilt except for the lack of actual quilting. However, I was ready to be done with it. I had decided to use a double strand of thread instead of pearl cotton or a thicker thread. That meant dealing with unraveling and knotting and all sorts of other problems. Not fun. However, I did get to use my quilt hoop, which was fun. It is no surprise that this would be my favorite project I completed, since I love fall colors.

But wait! I did manage to make another quilt this year too! After realizing that I wouldn’t be able to complete a full size quilt back in September for my sister-in-law’s birthday, I decided to make her a pillow using what would be the block pattern for the quilt. I did, however, manage to procrastinate to the point where I didn’t finish the quilt until the day before leaving for Idaho to spend Christmas with my husband’s family. Typical. The quilt looks amazing, and looks great in her room. It will look better when a picture of three of her horses that was printed on canvas and taken by the amazing photographer, Sarah Costa (http://sarahcostaphotography.com), is up above her bed. Of course, using a charm pack of Kate Spain’s Fandango as the feature fabrics doesn’t hurt either.

So what is my goal for 2013? Finish the plethora of projects I started this last year, like That 70s Quilt and The Desperate Housewife’s Quilt. Also, I’d love to start work on two quilts using two different lines by Kate Spain, Good Fortune and Central Park. Oh, and do something fun and amazing with the Lorax fabric. Maybe if I have some extra time to squeeze in, I’ll finally get started on a Christmas quilt too.

Itching to Start Something New

Ever since finishing the Uninspired Quilt, I’ve been itching to begin a new project. Well, maybe I should rethink this prospect.

While technically the Uninspired Quilt is finished, I’ve been toying with the idea of adding appliqué tikis to turn it into a Polynesian quilt. I haven’t washed it yet for that very reason. Perhaps if I make it into something fun I’ll like it more. Hmm… I wonder if I took enough pictures of various tikis in the Tiki Room at Disneyworld a few years ago to use those as either inspiration or tweak them in Photoshop and print them out onto fabric? This would certainly give the quilt not only more character but more meaning as well.

Still, between the Alexander Henry In the Kitchen line that keeps staring at me to make That 70s quilt, the Figgy Pudding charms and yardage by Basic Grey for Moda to make my Christmas Stars Quilt and Central Park layer cake, charm and yardage by Kate Spain for Moda telling me to make a summery flying geese quilt, the temptation to take the plunge into a new project is great. Perhaps what I really need to do is stop contemplating a new project and simply dive right in.

Forcing Creativity

When life gets in the way of being creative, sometimes you have to force it. However, this isn’t always the best thing to do.

A typical day for me goes like this: Wake up; feed the dog and cats; make coffee; blog; shower and get dressed; go to work; maybe quilt on my lunch break; come home and cook dinner; sit in front of the television and stare absentmindedly while probably also on the internet doing the same. Boring. My days off I tend to spend cleaning and doing laundry rather than anything fun… most of the time. Lately I’ve been forcing myself to do something creative on my days off by making How To videos. It does take a little bit of planning to put one of these together, something I am admittedly bad at, but I find that if I still keep the project unscripted and spontaneous I don’t lose interest halfway through. Of course, sometimes this can still backfire.

Forcing creativity is at times a double edged sword. On one end is the side that says, “Yay! I’m doing something creative! My mind is happy!” and on the other end, “I frakking hate this project and I just want to burn it.” Okay, so maybe those are a little extreme. However, I will say that when I was working on The Uninspired Quilt this is how I felt. I’m sure a big part of it was the bad memories of buying the fabric from The Most Evil Corporation in the World, but also I spent so long trying to figure out what to do with it I gave up and just started cutting it into large scale squares and triangles.

So now what? I’ve got a finished quilt I hate, or at the very least find extremely unpleasant. Well, I have options. I can sell it to recoup my costs, which was roughly $30 worth of material and cotton batting. I can donate it, but I feel like I’ve made far too many quilts that ended up getting donated in the past year for various fundraisers. Or I can make it better. Methinks that the latter might be the way to go. Perhaps I should take another good look at the quilt and figure out what I could do to improve on it. Or perhaps I should go with my gut and turn this ugly duckling into a funky Tiki Quilt since the fabrics have a Polynesian feel to them already. Now I suppose the big question I need to answer is whether or not I’ll simply go find a coordinating Tiki print to cut out and appliqué the little figures or make my own?

Spoonflower

Uninspired Quilt Complete

What happens when you are completely uninspired by a project you are working on? You don’t want to work on it.

Okay, so for a good year and a half now I have been working on a quilt using fabric I bought back in 2006 for a quilt that never materialized. By working on it, I mean I started it, put it away, did the backing, put it away again and didn’t want anything to do with it from that point on. I loved it at first, but then after actually starting a project with it became completely uninspired by everything about it. Naming it such certainly did not help the situation.

 So yesterday afternoon with nothing else to do, I decided I was going to once and for all finish the damn thing. I taped down the backing, layered it with the batting and top, basted with some safety pins and brought it into my craft room to quilt. Being that I haven’t been too keen on doing much with this project, I decided to simply do wavy lines to mimic the waves in the striped fabric, but only go vertical. I quilted the centers and edges of each block this way and for a brief moment contemplated doing betweens for a mass of verticals, but honestly, felt it was done and ready to fold over the backing and bind.

I’m pretty confident in my ability to simply fold over the backing fabric and machine bind, but when the sides are bigger than I originally thought they would be I thought that would be beneficial. Wrong. I should have cut them more. Yes, it’s waste, but waste is better than headaches. I’m still contemplating ripping the sides, cutting or folding the excess under and doing them over, but for now, I’m calling this project completed. Why? Because with a name like Uninspired Quilt, I’m just glad it is done and one more thing I can cross off my To-Do List. Plus, the bonus part of this whole quilt was that I was able to use the excess from The Fall Quilt for the batting and still have enough batting leftover from that bag for a couple smaller projects.

Looking at it now, I’m probably going to rename it to what I had originally thought when I came up with the super simple pattern, and that is Open Envelopes Quilt. Who knows, if I get really bored maybe someday I will add a few surprises inside those envelopes. However, the Magic 8-Ball says: Doubtful. Outlook is grim. Another time, perhaps.