Finished - The Christmas Quilt

I promised to post pictures of the finished quilt.  I am cheating a bit as the quilt still needs binding, a label and a sleeve but since it is not due until October  it has lost first place in the finishing stakes.  There is a good reason for  being dropped as I will explain.

Here it is.  This pieced quilt required patience and persistence and a bit of  insanity.

 Persistence because by the end I was thoroughly sick of the ruler and 1/4 inch lines.  Also patience includes concentration and I let my mind wander and had to pick out 4 small sections where I had done them upside down.  This was done with 12 stitches to the inch. I mumbled and grumbled about self to self  but it got done. As well quilting off white on off white is really tricky. The light has to be just right so daylight and side lighting seemed be the best. Every quilt teaches you something.

 The back looks pretty good and the fabric is such a lovely one.

 Not sure what the binding will be as there is so much glitter in the Christmas fabrics and the border.   Time enough.

Insanity arises because after being pleased with the results I started to watch The Quilt Show this morning and saw how beautiful other quilts are and mine began to look not so good.  It would be insanity if I just tossed this quilt because it was not perfect but I remember when I first started and heard a well known quilter respond to a question about making a mistake.  Her response was a cherry 'I just pretend it is part of my original design'.  When I start feeling the insanity of having total perfection in my quilting I remember that response.

This Christmas quilt got bumped because a family member has cancer.  We are distant from each other and there is nothing that cannot be done except to wait and hear any news.  At least that is the way it seemed.  However, doing nothing is not my way.  I had made a quilt top with a panel quite a while ago and was very cautious about how to quilt it. This quilt ended being very talkative about how it wanted to be quilted.  But it is perfect to bring cheer when it is needed.  Sunflowers make you smile.   At least I sincerely hope it has that effect.  The back is pieced with a piece of sunflower fabric and a lovely yellow batik.  I hope this quilt when it arrives will bring some warmth and comfort.  Each stitch is a prayer for the recipient and her family.  Quilts are special as they are so much a product of the reason it is started; the fabric chosen and the design and the quilting.  Each of these choices is made by a person who puts their heart into the tasks.  So from heart to mind to fingers, this quilt is a prayer for hope and recovery.  I hope it will provide warmth and caring during treatments.

If you are a quilter you are special.  If you receive a quilt as a gift you are special too.  If you read about quilting you too have heart.  Prayers are welcome.

Shifting piles

Ok.  I am sure that many of you who are quilters or knitters or anything else creative  know about shifting piles.  Items to be created start with an idea, pattern, magazine or from your head.  Pile 1.  Then you start the project and they become Pile 2 and sometimes pile UFO and at the worst pile 'graveyard'.  If you go directly from Pile 2 to Pile 3 which is a finished object but a not totally complete object  you go to Pile 4.  And occasionally the UFO pile after a bit of work goes to Pile 4.   Pile 4 for me is needs to be quilted.  The nice thing about that is it physically moves from my sewing area to another room and if I avoid that quilting room I can feel quite righteous about having finished a quilt top.   But Pile 4 is a real nagger so eventually it gets quilted.  My strategy for delay is that I cannot figure out just how I want to  quilt it. I spend spare time doodling quilting designs.

So here is a piece that has just moved from Pile 3 to Pile 4.  It is a quilt by Gerry Robinson out of a McCalls magazine.  Her quilts are always gorgeous.  I made it a scrap quilt as I have so many Christmas scraps.  The Christmas scrap box is now reduced and added to since I started.   Now I can begin to think about how it should be quilted.  But that will have to wait as there are others nagging in Pile 4.  6 more days until I can bend and lift like normal.  (Oh, I am hearing the house nagging too.  SHHHHH!!!!)  :)

A Year Ending

Well there is no lack of snow here in the Annapolis Valley.  While I rest from clearing snow with a new toy, a 285 pound snow thrower, I will do a bit of catch up.  The dogs love the snow as you can see.  I think I could have floated a boat in the kitchen as she melted.

I finished the table runner for which I had attached a tutorial by putting on the binding.  What a time deciding on just the right binding.  It hung in my sewing room for a couple of weeks.  Black seemed too dull and I did not have enough of any of the fat quarters to use them as binding and it certainly did not need a pieced binding to bring interest.  In the end it is a simple green from a large scrap left over from goodness knows what.  Lesson: do not throw things away.  But I think most quilters fall into the range of keeping with hopes it will find a purpose.

I have not yet put this flat on a table as a certain puss will find it and make it his own.  

In the vein of not throwing things away, I have accumulated a lot of Christmas fabrics.  They are so tempting and so beautiful.  So I found a quilt in a McCalls Quilting magazine from about two years ago (they always have gorgeous quilts) and decided to do it in scraps instead of the original shades of red.  The designer of the quilt is Gerri Robinson whose quilts I just love.  After lots of cutting out and then piecing the strips I have an almost finished quilt.  It will not be done and quilted this Christmas no matter how much I might want it.  The clock goes so fast at this time of year.

The last rows are bit squished on the design wall but I love the quilt and the scraps for the flying geese in the star are now some Christmas ornaments.  Never throw bits out.  The scraps made lovely pinwheels.  

Lastly here is a bit of wisdom from a young quilter you may have heard of, Leah Day.  I love her frankness and freshing outlook.  Being a type A personality I can be totally empathetic with what she has written.  

News from Leah Day

We're getting down to the wire of this year and this will be the last newsletter for 2013! It's been a wonderful year full of learning, trying new things, making mistakes, and figuring out how to fix them.

When I look back at the past year, the one thing I'm most thankful for is learning how to overcome my drive for perfection. So often I feel pressure to create perfect quilts, with perfect quilting, simply because there is always at least ONE person that likes to point out and highlight my mistakes.

What I've realized this year is I don't quilt for that one person. I quilt for myself, and learning how to accept my ability, wherever it is on any given day, and within the time limits I have, has been both a joy and relief. I'm tired of being nit picky, I'm really sick of ripping out every tiny mistake, and I definitely like getting projects done faster with less worry about what everyone will think of it.

I read something right before Thanksgiving this year that also contributed to my new happily imperfect mentality. It was an article written by Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, and how she plans out big meals like a Thanksgiving dinner. After planning everything out, she always stops and asks herself:

"How can I simplify this?"

This caused a revolution in my brain because I don't think I have ever, EVER asked myself that question.

My usual habit is to pick the most complicated, fiddly, annoyingly time consuming way of doing something, and then end up feeling frustrated and angry with myself after getting neck deep in a method that is ultimately no fun.

But that simple question - How can I make this simple? How can I make this easy? - is helping me change this habit and stop and reconsider decisions, particularly quilting construction decisions, and make easier, simpler choices before the fabric is even cut.

Without this new mentality, I don't think I would have been able to finish the Building Blocks Quilt Pattern in time for 2014.

There were two blocks I originally designed that ended up being too complicated for the finished quilt. In years past, I would have become locked into the decision of using these blocks and added loads of stress and complication to completing the pattern.

This year I asked myself that magical question and the solution came easily - design another block! Don't fight the pattern, don't fight complication! Just simplify!

All of this might sound extraordinarily obvious. Duh...simplicity is key! To someone like me, however, this is a cause for celebration to know that I'm allowed to make a quilt and not spend three weeks agonizing over every fabric color in my stash. It's okay to pick just two colors!

Ultimately when I boil down this search for simplicity, I find the root issues are love and self-acceptance.

The drive for perfection is a drive for something else, not for what I can do with the time and energy I have today, but I what I should be able to do if I was only good enough. Perfection always focuses on what is lacking, even the tiniest mistake that no one else will notice.

To choose to let go of this perfection drive is to choose love over lacking. It's to say to yourself:

"I am enough and what I make, no matter if it wins a ribbon in a quilt show, or it gets worn out on my son's bed for the next 10 years, it has made me happy and content to make it."

That happiness and contentment starts, I believe, with simplicity.

Since I was a little girl, I've loved the Shaker song Tis a Gift to be Simple. Only now I realize that the song is not talking about a real gift, like a rustic carved wooden toy, but the gift of a simple life. It can set you free.

Speaking of free...let's check in on the Free Motion Quilting Project and see what's been posted this week:

Quilting IS Funny - Megan Dougherty, the author of The Bitchy Stitcher blog has just self published her first book of hilarious quilting stories titled Quilting Isn't Funny. Check out my review to see if you'll find this book of irreverent humor funny or not!

 Josh's Non Quilting Tip #1- Josh hasn't been quilting because we've both been neck deep in a bathroom remodel disaster. If you're thinking about remodeling, or planning to hire anyone to do any work for you in the future, make sure to read this post and not make the same mistakes we did. And, fair warning: this is a Holiday horror story.

79. Free Motion Quilt Space Feather Here's a pretty feather design perfect for borders, sashing, or filling massive areas of your next quilt. The best part: minimal travel stitching so it will be simple to quilt as well!

Find all of these articles plus hundreds more right here on the Free Motion Quilting Project.

Look up Leah and now from me

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A WONDERFUL 2014 FROM ME AND MY FURRY FAMILY

I will be taking a break in January for some surgery and catching up on my knitting projects. See you in February or before if I can push enough.

Christmas Roses Quilt

Another UFO.  The top for this quilt has hung around my fabric room for ages without any borders.  I simply could not stir myself after the original borders did not work.  The reds were not the rich Christmas red I have always associated with Christmas.  I had not really liked the borders anyway but ................Those of you who quilt will be familiar with this malaise when something does not appear to be a wise choice.  And the longer things hang around the harder it is to move them up the list.

I searched for another border that would be in keeping with the center of the quilt.  Some of the strips in the quilt portray Christmas rose as well as pointsettia and lilies..

 These roses do not appear in Canada in all the ice and snow at Christmas but do appear in the UK where it is milder.  So when I found a backing material covered in roses albeit not the same Christmas roses and put the border on the quilt it moved a step or two up the rung of the UFO ladder.  I remember many years ago learning that red roses play a large part in the table decorations in France at Christmas and even had a wreath made of red velvet roses.  This wreath now survives, undone as ribbons on my Christmas tree; silk velvet which has a gorgeous hand and many memories.  I also conceived a design for the border of this quilt of full blown roses and an overall quilting pattern of cascading rose petals with some holly sprigs thrown in.   A few more rungs on the UFO ladder earned there.

So Hortense and I got busy and this quilt is now finished.

 Where the quilt is going from here is a question as I have started a more contemporary scrap Christmas quilt.  How do all the Christmas fabrics proliferate overnight?  But I have come to like this reject and with a nice cozy wool batting it makes a lovely bed cover.  

Unfortunately the UFO list is a bit like an extension ladder in that it can expand to great heights and like ladders things can slip down and climb up.  The newest things become the favourites and then slip.  Oh how fickle we quilters are when we see something new and exciting.  UFOs get demoted.  How often you can overhear in a quilt shop 'I really shouldn't'.  'Ah, why not?'  And another quilt slips down the UFO list.  How do I know?  I have a room full of fabric and an overflow and lots of friends in the same position.  Do we encourage each other?  You bet we do.  Nothing like friends who agree with us at just the right time.  'Yes, it will make a beautiful quilt'.  PERMISSION to purchase the fabric.