"WILD THING" 11/05

Zvi finally enjoying his quilt after a two year wait!

I began quilting when my 4th was born, but Zvi got a little jealous, so I started this one too. This quilt was full of nasty dilemmas. Honestly, I cringe thinking about it.

For starters, the lime fabric had puffy stars on it that melted under even the coolest of irons, so every single patch created a problem. And of course, I had to make my own pattern and template with a wierd angle, even though I had just started quilting (what was I thinking?!). Since I had read so much about rotary cutting I decided it must be rotary cut, so I pieced together all of those fabrics at that wierd angle. When it came time to cut it I had to use the template because it was somehow not pieced together exactly right - in other words, my seam allowances were too large, and after cutting rows I had to skip every other patch because it didn't match the template. That required another trip to the fabric store, and more $.

Finally when the lime/blue patches were finished, I knew I needed a border. I had thought of using white, perhaps diamonds of blue and lime in the border, but I had just purchased EQ5, and loved the way orange looked. I didn't know it at the time, but orange and blue are complementary colors, which is why it worked so well. My sensibilities got the better of me however, and orange was declared off-limits by my conscience. Too harsh, too bright, too unusual, so not me, it said. I searched and searched online for inspiration, and then I hit it. Hancock's of Paducah what would I do without you? This print that you see above came in blue and a sea green, and they were all on sale. I bought them all. In person, sea green was not right, but I did use it for the backing. Then it was between the blue and orange. One quilt meet later and it was decided, the border would be orange. I owe it all to Lenni. She sealed the deal when she said, "Oh no," to me holding the blue, "that's too safe."

"TOO SAFE!" This has changed my quilting life, folks. I am a conservative person in my life choices, but have a very bold personality. From then on I decided, "Of course, I don't have to be safe!" Now I refuse to be. So what if some people won't like the quilt that way, or you might have more people like it if you're conservative, so what! So what if you do it and even YOU hate it!!! It's a statement, an expression. If you're feeling mixed up one day, why can't you make a mixed up quilt that makes no sense? Isn't what we love about our quilts the memories they conjure up?

Finally, I couldn't bring myself to cut off any pinwheels mid spin, so I had to blend it into the border. This was a slight relief since at least with the blues I didn't have anything melting on my iron. I purchased an extra thick batting for my first time machine quilting. I had to quilt around each pinwheel, so it would stand out. This was more of a nightmare than the melting stars!

I've learned not to be so perfect after making this quilt. My neighbor and quilting buddy Ellen keeps telling me, "Just finish it, just do it, don't worry so much about being perfect." It took me a while to listen, but I did. More on that another day...