Time, space, patience - these are my weaknesses. I have, for so long as I can remember, tended to rush through life. My instinct is to run, not walk towards the next good thing. When I find myself in a place that doesn’t suit me, I move.
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How to write about this quilt? I do absolutely love how it came out. LOVE! This was one of those enchanted maker journeys. Designing the quilt and choosing the colors/fabrics was more a process of recognizing the inevitable than planning the ideal. Everything about it feels absolutely meant to be. And yet.
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Today before I sewed the last long seam of the quilt top, I paused and stood just staring at it. I came to realize that this quilt is one of my favorites that I have made in the last years. It’s very much my own inspiration, unrelated to other types of patchwork that I have seen, plus the palette is exactly me right now.
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Choosing for color, choosing for beauty, choosing for me. My heart like bright pink confetti, feminine and strong.
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I was feeling uneasy and stifled on January first when I sat down to sketch a new quilt. Art is a safe and peaceful way to free yourself; so, I could have sketched something wildly expressive. What actually came out on my paper was the very picture of inhibition - pretty, symmetrical, contained.
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This is where it begins. I can hole away for hours putting pencil to paper in my graph paper quilt journal. Some parts come easily and others are erased and re-drawn over and over and yet over again. Today you’ll see what I have created! My fingers and toes are crossed that you like it!!
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Honestly, I love my Kaleidoscope Groove quilt design, but bringing the concept to life in cloth has proved trickier than I thought. In this post, I’ve captured my evolving design process. I know that half of you are going to disagree with the choices I made, haha, so that’s also a lesson for us all. There really are no wrong choices!
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This week I am spinning a web of star blocks. Fancy, twirly, glowing stars on dark green, teal and blue backgrounds. Each block invites an individual color composition. But the real design challenge comes in putting multiple blocks together.
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This month I have been keeping a secret. Or really, it’s been longer than that. Certainly my marriage has been dying a long, slow death of many months and years. For a long while the edges of that growing reality were soft and slippery until their form became a solid thing that could not be denied.
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“Work-in-progress” sets such a forgiving and patient tone, don’t you think? That is definitely the attitude I’ve needed for this baby quilt, since I have constantly second-guessed myself in the making process. I have struggled in part because I really, really want it to be lovely for my friend and also because I don’t have much experience with soft color schemes.
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I make some quilts as gifts or as charity projects or for my children. That is an outward-looking, outpouring process. Then there are the ones I make to let off steam. These are usually scrap quilts, and when I sew them it is as if the fabric and colors are pouring into me, filling me back up with energy, perspective and joy.
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Like everyone else, I’ve fallen in love with 1930’s Dutch houses. On a walk last autumn I began playing a game of picking out my favorite stained glass. That’s when it struck me - a quilt inspired by these houses, a sort of ode to their loveliness, would be a true pleasure to sew. Here’s what makes these houses special and how I’ve translated those characteristics to patchwork.
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My design wall is empty. Do you know what that means? It means that I’m free to indulge in some Christmasy sewing. Woohoo! Over the next few weeks, I plan to sew a forest of Christmas trees while I prepare behind the scenes for my next sew-along.
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Sewing serves a lot of roles in my life, but one of those is self-care. When I’m stressed, sad or processing something difficult, sewing offers an immersive, tactile experience. At times that experience can be an escape, but more often is a way of slowing down and working through my feelings.
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Wild Oranges has a big-picture story, which you can read when it is laying flat. But, I also wanted to create a design that would be beautiful crumpled up, twisted round and dropped in a heap on the sofa, as I know it will be. For me, this totally hits the spot!
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Have you been wanting to sew an orange peel quilt? It is such a charming shape, with its soft curves and pretty points. My Wild Oranges design has a concentration of dark values and orange peel blocks at the quilt center. The quilt softens around the edges with a calmer energy.
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I had to get my hands on the shapes and colors in order to design this quilt in real life. I want to play with both flower and round shapes with my orange peel quilt, as well as an upward-growing leafy vine layout. To keep things flowing and interacting, I also allow broken quartets. Such a pleasure to design!
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I so appreciate your suggestions about possible background colors for my red, red, red economy stars quilt! Here I try out a few and come up with a plan that strikes me as adventurous.
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