Patches and Panels

 

I wanted to share this quilt because it is not a typical quilt of any sort.  I simply wanted to put together pieces drifting around my sewing area in the colors that the mommy of little Liam loved.  I wanted to do it organically and make it work.  when I looked at it and held it I felt like I had succeeded!  I really enjoyed making this quilt. I felt a lot of love and deep connection with little Liam and his family while I was making this quilt.  It is loosely inspired by Rayna Gillman’s book, Inspired Free Form Quilting which I love!  I made a quilt for my 3rd grand daughter’s birth from her book and it was not only one of my favorites but it was so much fun!

It may have become obvious to some that I have been quilting for a number of years and still not really explored the arena of traditional piecing. I have to admit the obvious, that  1. I am not good at exact detail work and 2. I don’t like the exact detail work of piecing. 3. I really wanted to quilt anyway. 4. Liam does not care! For the traditional piecing experts consider my blog ‘remedial quilting’ and if you are new to quilting and nervous about getting into it due to the intimidating complexity of traditional piecing  consider my blog a wade into the shallow end of the quilting pool to get the hang of it and build confidence.  It is an amazing hobby and it does not have to be so difficult it keeps beginner sewers out of the pool entirely. So play around with your scraps, have fun and jump in.

The Addicting Lure of Potential…

I cannot explain just how excited a pile of beautiful fabrics in deep colors and saturation levels makes me.  It almost sounds obscene to describe it. I suspect it begins with the drooling greed we feel for a new box of crayons at age 6 or the giddy thought of walking through an art supply store with a pocket full of money and a summer of no obligations!  It is positively heady and I am drunk with it.  (Does this mean I am supposed to be an artist?)

Some quilters worry about the circumstance of having more fabric than they have years left in their life to finish sewing.  I worry that I will not have enough energy to get all the fabric hauled back to my house that I can discover, fall in love with and purchase!  (Lucky for me these fabric bundles of potential are often cast off, completely undervalued by others or perhaps from collections that outlived their dreamy owners! ) No, but really this is about that feeling of true and real potential.  I simply love that feeling! The feeling that these lovely piles of cloth offer endless potential of creating anything I can imagine and pull off.  I continually feel that with enough inspiration and time that could be literally anything. Me, my fabric stash, my machine and the sky is the limit! My endless belief in my future skill dovetails with this passion for potential. While I am wildly imaginative, I am not a highly skilled craftsperson, so it is kind of funny when I sit back and think of it. The level of optimism here is off the charts.  (I think it means I am meant to be an artist)

It is more than a mad passion for raw material.  There is a mood around here when the kids are done with school for the year, homeschooling duties on hiatus, huge chunks of free time carved out, my confidence and inspiration flowing, I dive into my piles of potential. Add a little Attention Deficit into this mix and I have crafting periods that begin with six projects at once.  That is exactly what this collection is, my early June 2016 projects.

Draped across my sewing table right now is a queen size quilt I am making for my daughter, a random anything goes quilt for my living room, a baby quilt in progress, a baby quilt that needs repair laying over stacks and stacks of grouped fabric for multiple projects and random finds layered into that mix. I sometimes alternate during a day and sometimes alternate projects on days and sometimes in one sitting I will work on several projects at once all while eyeing the piles that surround me.  ADQD. I call it Attention Deficit Quilting Disorder.

My sewing style often feels messy, overwhelming and strange. The magic number of projects for me to have in progress at any given time is 3-5.  Any less and I start digging through my stacks while I am working on a quilt! I have to entertain the reality that I am a chaotic lunatic (who thinks she is an artist) OR that this is a direct outgrowth of my absolute  passion for the lurking, fantastical, just ready to be revealed potential in every pile of fabric. I am simply in love with the undiscovered ‘masterpieces’ waiting to be brought to life and apparently too impatient to reveal them one at a time.

“Its alive! It’s alive!”