Thursday, October 30, 2014

Quilt Stories - Pirates 2014

My oldest daughter loves putting on events!  Her children have the coolest birthday parties :-)

And this year, her son Orlando had a pirate party..... so I decided to try and design something for him to go along with the theme.  It's not fancy... but it's fun :-)



Thing is... the child himself LOVES ball sports.... so I couldn't help myself... I had some fabric in my stash... and some fabric I had made him a pillowcase with.....



and coordinating fabric from the pirate side.....  and put this on the BACK!

So I felt quite clever... creating my own design... and making it reversible..

and made a curtain to go with both held up by my lovely assistant :-)



Fun!!







Saturday, October 11, 2014

Quilt Stories.... First Attempt.... Around the World 2014

This quilt began in 2007 with little quilting knowledge and a faulty machine

I learned online about Block of the month programs.... and fell in love with the way that the Florida Cabin Fever guild put so many out for me to learn on!

I learned about fat quarters...

This one is made from scraps and specifically purchased fat quarters

Each block matching nothing but the scrap sashing and - to me - representing the country it came from.

Nothing squared, nothing perfect

Just pieced blocks that I put away in 2009 when I took a quilt break..

When I looked at these blocks again in 2014, I immediately saw all the errors and problems.  It hurt my heart because I have 2 more complete tops from the same time period .. and several more started.  And I knew they were awful! 

But I took a second look and decided to honor my own work and learning process.

I straightened things out the best I could - without re-doing anything....

and went for it..

Spray baste sandwiched and quilted by machine.  By me....  (I figured if I learned about piecing on these blocks, I could learn about the rest of the process too!)

It is beautiful.

My first complete quilt top

My third completed quilt.



I do have to say that I am still tickled when I look at it - warts and all.  It is still pretty and it tells a story of a woman who wanted to quilt. 

One who had reasonable sewing skills but zero quilting knowledge. 

One who was brave enough to forge ahead with the knowledge she could gather on her own.

Yep..

I am that woman.  And that is cool.

Mistakes are simply stepping stones....  and your mistakes tell the story of your journey.  Period.