Evolution of a quilt

I believe that designing a quilt is part intentional, part accidental. I need to play with fabric and see what it does before I can decide if it will work.

My oldest son reminded me that it had been a while since I made him a quilt, and he was right. It had been a while. I don’t use patterns very often any more, but to get inspiration I searched through several quilting magazines and online for ideas. I found one that I thought he would like. I even began cutting out the fabric. I needed 144 – 2.5″ by 10″ strips and I reached 85 when I had to leave to attend a Ricky Tims symposium, called Luminarium. It was a 2-day event in Burlington, VT.

The two days just flew by as Ricky taught and entertained us. I learned about his designs and one, the Convergence Quilt caught my eye. I thought my son would like it, but he wanted a bed-sized quilt and this wasn’t close to a bed size. I came home, ready to get back to cutting strips and then thought, what the heck. I’ll try making the convergence quilt and see how it turns out.

I did *not* like the result. It wasn’t a matter of it didn’t turn out as I had hoped, I just didn’t like it. I questioned my fabric choices, which I rarely do, and I didn’t think the pattern flowed.

 

I added a small black border. Still didn’t like it I couldn’t see how it would look better.

I was ready to scrap it and return to the previous idea for my son’s quilt, but I showed the square to a couple of friends, who said that my son might like it. I showed it to him. He did. Ok, it was time to add some borders. I don’t generally like to add borders to smaller quilts because I find that unless you do it right, it just looks like you’ve added fabric to enlarge the quilt. So it was a challenge.

I added one border and thought, hmmm, this quilt actually looks nice:

 

And then I finished adding the borders because now I’m all in. And I love the result. I still have to quilt it and I already think I know how I am going to do it.

 

So the moral of this story is, don’t judge before you finish the project. You need to see the whole picture because just a part of it isn’t going to tell you the whole story.

Stay tuned. I’ll post a photo when the quilting is done.

 

If you want to see a few of my favorite quilts, click here.

Quilt for Senior Citizens Legal Fund

A friend, Rachel Weingarten, is raising money to help seniors remain in their home and community.

From the GoFundMe page:

For the past 18 months, sisters Rachel Weingarten  and Rebecca “Kiki” Weingarten  have been donating our time and efforts to helping vulnerable senior citizens in our communities. We need your help now raising enough money to pay for a retainer for attorneys to represent some of the most vulnerable among them.

 

To help the sisters, I offered to make a one-of-a-kind quilt for them to give or raffle off, whatever they felt would be the best use for it. This is the quilt. It’s a bargello pattern made with 100% cotton fabric and batting. The top is pieced with batiks and the back with Northcott fabric. The quilting design is a meandering pattern, all across the quilt.

The size is approximately 42 inches by 52 inches.

 

 

 

 

To learn more about their fundraiser, how to donate, and how to win this quilt – visit their GoFundMe page.