29 November, 2011

The easy way and...

My way (that is, the hard way).

I am a wannabe quilter. I recently finished my first real quilt, ten years in the making. I learned a lot, mostly about what not to do. I'm working on my second quilt now Having just finished my second quilt I'm learning more still. Best of all, I'm changing how I learn.

I have a habit of approaching new and complicated tasks as if I should be able to figure them out on my own. This is how I went about making my first quilt; that didn't go too well. It's also how I started the second quilt. I learned a bunch on the first one so I figured the second one should be effortlessly great, right?

At Rhinebeck I told Craftivore about the mistakes I made with the first one, namely the unintended pleating (on. both. sides!). Then something marvelous happened, she gave me some advice:
  • Tape each layer of the sandwich to the floor before basting the sandwich together.
  • Use a walking foot. 
Maybe not earth-shattering stuff to you guys, but for me I learned some stuff the easy way and, as Homer Simpson would say, with sexy results! [eyebrow waggle]



This second quilt was a great learning experience and the key lesson learned was that I don't need to come up with all the answers by myself. Sadly, I started the quilt before my epiphany and did learn a bit more the hard way (fabric grain is pretty important, we'll leave it at that) though mostly I found workarounds to any issues as I went.

I really didn't have a plan for this quilt going into it, just some fabrics I liked and that I thought looked good together.

There was lots of cutting followed by lots of piecing...


I decided on three long panels of different widths and did a lot more piecing...



But my panels weren't exactly straight so next came lots of stitch ripping, a hodge-podge of pieces and layout trials.



A happy Zen meditation later, all the pieces fell into place.



I took Craftivore's advice and the actual quilting was a walk(ing foot) in the park.



And when it came time to bind, I turned to the experts. I actually read the binding sections of my quilting books and looked to the interwebs for supplemental detail. Then and only then did I set out to make my straight-grain, double-fold corduroy binding. And it was good.

Love bound


They say third time's a charm. Looking forward to finding out!

7 comments:

  1. That quilt is effing beautiful!!! Love the grellow, love the modernist spots of color, love the frakkin corduroy binding. You rock.

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  2. great quilt but awesome photos... fun to see the progression... Cheers!

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  3. Lovely work! Sewing and sewing machines scare the crap out of me so I admire anyone that can use them so much!!

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  4. Don't know why this post only just now appeared in my Reader but wanted to say that I love your quilt so much and you too for using a Simpsons quote. :-)

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  5. The binding is amazing! And Craftivore is always a font of useful fiber crafting info...I knock on her door quite often.

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  6. I am a lot late to the game on commenting but I think this turned out beautiful! Everything new has a learning curve. One thing I accepted recently is that nothing ever has to be perfect when it comes to quilting. It's part of what makes it unique and special. Keep on crafting.

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  7. Thanks everyone! I can't wait until the holidays are over and I can start on the next one; the bug got me :)

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