Spring is nearly over in that part of Texas and it was almost hot with high humidity. My hostess Elizabeth took me to Houston Botanical Garden where things are very much in progress, beautiful nonetheless.
This cactus was so happy—it was covered in new growth.
And somehow before it’s over, the whole thing comes together. It isn’t without frustration, error and ugliness, though. There’s a lot of messing around. It feels like wasted time but I’ve learned it’s necessary.
I tried to make this quilt last year but I couldn’t bring it together. So I decided to try again. The key this time around was in letting go of the ones that didn’t work. I edited out a bunch of things! I hated to let the giant ghost and pumpkin go but their scale just wasn’t working.
After a lot of playing, I got a little closer, above. At this point I took a photo and printed it, as it helps to look at it in a different form. If I need to, I can cut up the paper and rearrange things.
Eventually I start sewing things together because you can only stress for so long. I add coping strips or patches as needed to make things fit. Some sections come together easily.
Some are more difficult, like the one below. It still feels awkward to me but I had to keep moving forward in spite of it.
One thing I do continually is to back up from the design wall so I can see the big picture. Standing too close is deadly. Back way up!
Kathy Haverly from Hastings, Nebraska made the stars blocks, and I bought them on a guild garage sale for a few dollars. There were so many! I used a lot but I still have a lot!
My overall recipe was orange, black and blue so the bits of blue in the star blocks were a gift. The wonky Flying Geese were destined for some long-forgotten idea.
I was so happy to fit it in, and I love its glowing windows.
I created a spooky tree beside it but after a struggle, I abandoned that idea in favor of a coffin, which was easier to execute and is cuter, too.
When I’m sure of an applique feature, I fuse it down and machine straight stitch close to the edges. I came up with the spiders to fill awkward empty spaces. Now they’re my favorite part.
Do you see how things don’t need to be in proportion as they’d be in real life? Those spiders are huge compared to the house. But it’s all so whimsical that it doesn’t matter.
…the elements were mostly already made. I thought it was finished but I added a scrappy black border to fill with hand sewn big stitch. More on that later.
Wouldn’t that be fun? And I have almost enough of them to warrant a new trunk show. In the meantime, they’ll go into the Taste Test Trunk Show of unexpected sampler quilts.
The class was Psychedelic Baby, taught by Katie Pedersen @sewkatiedid from Seattle. Katie was one of the first people I saw doing improv patchwork many years ago—maybe 2010?
I’ve enjoyed her work all these years and jumped at the chance to learn from her when Omaha Modern Quilt Guild brought her to town.
Back in 2017, Joe Cunningham (AKA Joe the Quilter) visited International Quilt Museum with his improvisational piecing techniques and it was really so much fun.
I take classes like this to expand my creativity and to get inside the minds of other designers and artists. If I end up with a quilt, so much the better.
Most of the time when I have a design published, it’s because I pitched it to a magazine and they accepted it. But last year, a magazine in the UK came to me, which was very exciting. I have often purchased Love Patchwork & Quilting because quilters in other parts of the world sometimes have a different aesthetic, or at least a different viewpoint, and it’s a good way to expose yourself to their ideas.
Love Patchwork & Quilting Issue 85. Get a digital issue today! My quilt is inside. 😊
They had seen my Instagram and wondered if I would design a scrap quilt for an upcoming issue. They didn’t have to ask twice.
I’ve been working on something totally outlandish and I have decided that the most important guideline for making art and doing original work in your quilting or any creative field is this:
You can’t be afraid to make something that nobody else has ever made.
You can’t be afraid to make something ugly.
You can’t be afraid to waste fabric or time or effort.
I started out with a simple idea of making a few more samples for a class I’m teaching at Vermont Quilt Festival this summer. It’s all about improvisationally-pieced curves.
It was innocent enough as I began. Pull, cut, sew, press, audition. Repeat.
One key is to have enough contrast between the fabrics in each block. And you want them to do different things. Curvy looks good with straight lines, or geometric looks nice with floral. You want a bit of tension between them.
As soon as this went up for its audition, my heart skipped a beat. Remember that for any audition you always want to stand WAY back across the room. You don’t get a good perspective if you are too close.
I ask a lot of questions: What would happen if I put in a very bold and graphic fabric like the blue and white above?
What would happen if I started mixing up the pairs? Could I put a center patch in that hole above with a partial seam? (Answer, yes you could!)
I cut and sew and add more blocks. I stand across the room. I fret. I thrill.
A color story starts to emerge and the quilt seems to be pink, red, orange and yellow. Very analagous. I decide that I should add more blue and blue-green and also some very darks.
I learned long ago from Mary Mashuta and Roberta Horton that if something sticks out like a sore thumb, you should add more of it. That’s right! If it resides in more than one place, your eye will move around the quilt instead of going straight to that one place. It’s absolutely true.
It was around this time that I panicked and thought the whole thing was just too bizarre. I made two sets with this stripe and dot, above. Would I be smarter to just make blocks in one size with two fabrics each? Maybe that would be better. But honestly.
If you look at these two blocks side by side, which one is more interesting? I decide to
I make a few smaller blocks so that I can fill in awkward spaces as needed. After each finish, I walk across the studio for the best possible view. It does you no good to stand close by.
At one point I shoot a text to a good quilting friend.
At some point you have to start thinking about how you’re going to sew it all together. I decide where I can add fillers and coping strips and I start to think about sections and partial seams.
I make decisions about repeating fabrics to help tie the whole mess together. I trim and skootch and trim some more. I hope to high heaven that it will lie flat.
After about three days, it comes together! Just below is the final version, 68″ x 83″. I had free time to spend and this is how I spent it. My husband did laundry and meals while I hunkered down and didn’t talk to him very much. He’s a very good sport!
When he came in to the studio and saw it on the design wall, he crossed his arms over his chest and thought. He wasn’t sure.
His answer did not bother me. And I think that is when I realized that for three days, I had been forging ahead without fear.
And that is exactly what you will need to do in order to make art, to create something original no matter what your medium is.
The payoff is that you will have something that has never been made before in all the history of humankind. Nor will it ever be made again. It is yours and yours alone.
I’ve continued sorting my UFOs and there are several I am really excited about. A couple of ideas have evolved along the way. (If you’re not a quilter, a UFO is what we call an UnFinished Object. It’s a project you started but didn’t complete.) Here are the takeaways so far.