The Lesson

I threw myself a birthday partly this past summer, and my long-arm quilter came. I gave her a flimsy to be quilted and all the guests and I were looking at it. Someone asked her a question. She flipped the flimsy over, revealing the back. (I felt like somebody threw open my underwear drawer.)

"Look at this. See how the seams match perfectly? See how the seams are pressed so neatly? See how there are no loose threads? This quilt is square and lies flat. THIS is a dream to work with. I quilt over 300 quilts a year. THIS is rare. You wouldn't believe the crap I get. I LOVE quilting Lynne's quilts."

I was taken aback, to say the least. I know I do good work, and we have all heard about how long arm quilters are fussy about the flimsies they quilt, but I thought it was a story worth sharing. You can look at the back of the Nightingale quilt, a detail of which is in the photo above. You can see the seams are neat, and there are no loose threads Sure, the fabric ravels, and some of those threads show, but that's the nature of the beast.

If there are any of you have don't believe the stories you've heard, here it is writ large: Press your seams, trim your threads. Make sure your work is square and lies flat without any ripples. It makes a big difference.

The Pink Panther is Sewn Up

 

It's a flimsy! It is 62" x 76".

Two by Two, then One, Two, Three

I had Friday afternoon off, so I went right into the studio and started putting the Petal blocks together.

I could have sewn the blocks together in rows, but I was worried I'd get the blocks mixed up because their orientation was so important to the design, so I sewed the blocks together in pairs, one pair at a time.

Then I sewed them into short rows.

And big blocks.

Seven hours (lunch, two loads of laundry, dinner and a bit of rearranging) later...

It's a flimsy.

Or rather, it was until I realized that I had altered the arrangement of the teal and gray blocks on the bottom left of the quilt, and not done so on the upper left, where you can see three gray blocks too close to each other. I hate when that happens.

So that had to change. NOW it's done.


Off to the stash to find fabrics for a scrappy backing!

"QUILTS" -- updated!

For everybody who sees my finished work, I thought we'd start with how I get there BEFORE I trim stuff to make it "neat."

I suppose this puts "working improvisationally" in context.

Actually, I thought the "I" was to wide so I narrowed it down, even though I knew it would jam the letter closer to the U and the T on either side.  Then I thought there was too much space between the L and the T, so I sewed those two closer together too.

Here's the "cleaned up" version.

Now, however, when I look at the word on the design wall with all the others I think... it's too small and the letters are jammed too close together... and I don't like those four patches I added yesterday...

This is when it's time to put the tools down, leave the studio and go do something else.


HOWEVER, the point of this flimsy is to show students how I put things together, which they can understand more effectively by being able to look at the back. This exercise was never meant to be quilted, and rather than spend a lot of time making a super spiffy flimsy (that I would always lament I couldn't have quilted) I decided to use my duds, my rejects, my orphans and put something (anything) together.

From a strictly technical point of view, this is fine. It meets the requirements and I didn't have to expend huge amounts of energy, time and money to put it together.

From a design and creative point of view... it is lacking, I admit.


UPDATE: 9:00 AM

You didn't really think I could leave it that way, did you?

 I couldn't. I took it apart, made a new I and a new L and pushed them apart a bit. The word is still small, but I like it better.

This morning, even the four patches don't bother me so much.

Letter Flimsy Grows

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I've sewn all the words and rows together except the last one "QUILTS." The light in the studio isn't that great at night so the photos aren't so sharp and in focus.

I used the leftover bits from the Rail Fence quilt to make some four patches to fill up the spaces on either side of the "SOUP-ER AMAZING" block.

This damn flimsy is getting BIG! Right now it is 42" tall by 57" wide.