Wow. Do you ever have that project that you just think about? Pull out, put back up…over and over again?
Well this is one for me. I took this project to my very first Houston Modern Quilt Guild retreat in March 2019, like 10 years ago right? Well I’ve made patterns by Suzy Quilts before and thought this would be an easy finish for the weekend.
Well, boy was I wrong. It wasn’t the pattern itself. It was a combination of several very bad decisions.
Ignorance is bliss.
It’s important to tell you the destiny of this quilt. It is destined to be a wedding present to one of my best friends ever, Kassie. So her wedding colors dictated my fabric shopping- I blame her 🙂
I wanted to capture the beautiful rose gold and emerald greens that would remind her of her beautiful Christmas wedding. So I went shopping…. and mistakes were made.
Here’s what I bought. Riley Blake Rose Gold Stripes- Quilting Cotton. So far so good.
Then Emerald Green Essex Metallic Linen…ok we’re getting a little trickier.
A 9oz Brushed Denim in dark green- I could resist the texture! I think it looks incredible but…it was a curse inducing choice.
The final straw that broke the metaphorical camels back….a Cloud9 Glimmer Pearl that was 85% cotton and 15% lurex.
So…almost everything has some stretch and give. AHHH.
The next big mistake was the pattern… it’s a lovely pattern called Kriss Kross by Suzy Quilts. I think in other circumstances it would have worked out fine…but because of my material choices this became some problem too.
The construction method ends up with a trimmed block, that has a bunch of bias edges. Oh boy. So things were stretching and warping out of place. This made me so mad! At this point I had over 24 hours of work into this quilt and I was somewhat disappointed that the result wasn’t more perfect.
By the end of the retreat- 3 wonderful days with some people that I truly love to talk to about this hobby now, I ended up with sewn rows.
This was a major bummer and I wasn’t sure if it would look terrible once it got together.
I pulled it out late last year and sewed one row together. I was frustrated with the result again.
Yesterday morning I pulled it out of a tote, and decided it was time. Get over yourself. Get over your need for “precision” and “perfection.” Nothing is perfect, and quilts are meant to be loved and used, and this one is just sitting in a box!!!
Well after that revelation it took me less than a full hour to finally stretch and match what I needed to get the quilt top complete. And you know what? When I stepped back and looked at it, it isn’t as bad as it was in my mind. It’s quite beautiful.
The thing that originally attracted me to these fabrics, is what brings this quilt joy. It has depth, shimmer, and texture!
The moral of this story is GET OVER YOURSELF. Not everything you make will be perfect. Not everything you make will be a wonderful match of points. I have learned so much in the last 1.5 years. I put a lot of pressure on myself to quilt and create at a certain level of professionalism.
At the end of the day though, it’s not rocket science and I know even if it looked as bad as my mind had convinced me- Kassie would still LOVE it. She will cherish it because it came from a place of love.
Learnings:
- Just finish the thing
- Mistakes happen!!
- If you can’t get over it rehome the project to someone who just might finish it!
- Don’t take yourself too seriously, this is fun!
Let me know in the comments if any of your projects were a comedy of errors, and what you learned!
I hope Kassie and Andrew just love it!
-Tina
