April 2021

Progress on anything is a tricky subject. From a distance, progress can be easily noticed and measured but when very close to the subject, it is much more difficult to see. Quilting is no different.

I have been quilting for a long time. Over 30 years now, and there are still a lot of days where I feel like I am maybe an intermediate quilter at best. It is difficult for me to see the growth in my abilities as a quilter when I am sewing every single day of my life. Then enters the UFO.

I’ve been making a point over the last year to dig out some of my UFOs that have been languishing for a very long time, and turn them into SOMETHING. Maybe not the project they started out to be, but at least something that is in a state of completion that can be put to some use around the house. Some things become table toppers or wall hangings. Some things actually get completely finished but either way I’m getting those UFOs up and done and out of the box.

Over the weekend I dug out another (this makes the 6th or 7th) Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt that I started. I’m pretty sure this got started around 2010, because I remember sewing in my kitchen that winter. I’m sure if I dug around in my photos I could find a dated photo but who has the time for that. Let’s just go with 2010. That means this project is 11 years old. Oh my goodness have my skills improved in eleven years. There has been enough time since I last touched this project, that the difference in my accuracy and ability is striking.

This got me to wondering how many other things in my life do I not realize that I’ve gotten better at over time. I know I’m better at polishing my nails because I don’t have to do as much clean up, and that one also got better with doing it. Makes me think that the key to a lot of things is to just do to get better. I dislike the word practice. Practice makes it seem like you aren’t really doing the thing. You have to do the thing to get better.

I’ve assembled all the blocks that were finished in my scrappy trip bin and I need to complete six more blocks that were in pieces. I’m going to put this one completely together, it deserves that. It is going to be my reminder to Do The Thing. Do The Thing to improve.

The first time I saw the pattern cover for Jen Kingwell’s Small World quilt, I recognized the iconic facade and Mary Blair’s design for the Small World ride at Disneyland and I knew I would end up making this quilt.

I was asked to teach the quilt over a series of months for my local quilt shop and that seemed to be the perfect excuse to dive right in. I knew I wanted my small world to be very scrappy and very colorful, much like the ride I remembered from my childhood. You see, this was my all time favorite thing to do at Disneyland. I remember the summer we lived in LA, my mother went on that ride multiple times with me and every time, I was just in awe of the colors and the music as our little boats followed the lazy river through the ride. I still can hear the music in my head.

The quilt is actually put together in sections, then those sections are joined so that you can focus on one area at a time. That fit nicely into a class setting, we devoted each month to a different section in the quilt. The sections are numbered right to left, so we worked the quilt in that order with the upper left corner being the last section to complete.

As happens with that kind of class, I kept up with the students, and after our last class, I did not go back and join my sections, rather it all languished in a box for a few years. Last summer, some friends started talking about the pattern, and I spoke up, noting that I had one that was almost completely finished. That was the prompt I needed to get it out, get the sections assembled and quilt it.

The quilting is nothing elaborate, I chose a pattern that would look like clouds and wind in the sky areas, but would rather disappear in all the intricate piecing of the building section. I am not a custom quilter, I never will be, and I was much more interested in getting this quilted so that it did not spend another 4 years in a box in my sewing room and I’m so glad I made that choice.

The quilt now hangs on the wall in my sewing room behind the long arm. It is the first thing I see when I open the door and turn the lights on, and every time it brings back some wonderful memories of my mother. I am so glad I made this quilt and while it is not a bed sized quilt (very out of the ordinary for me) I’m so very glad I made it and have it on display to enjoy.

Next week, I’m going to take a look at another mystery quilt that I did in 2020.

You may have noticed there were no blog posts the last two weeks. In shades of March 2020, I have not been able to keep up with what day it is. Monday disappears, Tuesday feels like Monday, Wednesday is a blur and I wake up Thursday and realize there has been no blog post. Oh well. It is what it is. I could give you a billion cliches about letting that go. What I will do instead is work on some new material, and tee up several posts so that I can get ahead of things again. That’s the plan anyway.

I have really enjoyed posting about quilts that I’ve made, so I’m going to keep going with that theme a little while longer. Lots of ready material there and the consensus seems to be that you, my dear readers, are enjoying it, so here we go.

This month is a very different quilt for me. This is the result of friends. Friends with ideas. Friends who can talk me into just about anything if it looks fun. I had a group of friends in 2018 who were all doing the Kaffe Fassett Mystery quilt, and it seemed like a spiffy idea. I got myself signed up, and got stuck in making blocks. This is one of the first projects where I mostly kept up with the monthly kits and put the whole thing together in early 2019.

The mystery was offered in two different color ways – light and dark. I chose the dark and felt like I hit the lottery with that choice. The deep plum fabric really makes the jewel tone colors pop, and it has a rainbow color progression from the outside ring to the inside of the quilt. The binding is the same dark plum for a nice finished frame around the quilt.

In typical fashion for me, it’s a large quilt – 82×82 and very different from anything I’ve made in a long time. I had forgotten how saturated the colors are until I took it out to photograph it for this blog post. I think this will end up on the back of the sofa this summer.

Next week I’ll take a look at the quilt that hangs on the wall in my sewing room….