When scrappy gets the best of you
I don’t always get scrappy quilts right. This week I got one really wrong.
I had time to sew over Christmas so I pulled out a UFO (UnFinished Object) with a Christmas theme: Tannenbaum by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.
There are 10 elements making up the Christmas tree, and I had three done. But it’s not a large quilt so it seemed doable, especially since it was snowing and blowing and I’d not be venturing out soon.
I opted for rickrack handles on the baskets (which led to a half day of reorganizing my rickrack collection) and that went pretty well.
I’d had the good sense to buy pre-cut applique shapes with the fusible web already added. I think they’re worth the money.
I made steady progress and was feeling confident. My reds and greens were just scrappy enough. My plan was to go scrappy with the backgrounds too, which looks fine in the rows.
But when I started adding the backgrounds, everything took a nosedive. Do you see how the backgrounds don’t really blend together? It appears to have columns on the sides. The floral backgrounds don’t blend in at all. The tree doesn’t stand out nicely from the background either.
You might wonder why I didn’t stop right there. Good question.
I didn’t want to unsew and lose the progress I’d made. The finish line was in sight. Surely I could salvage it! I bulldozed forward.
I decided that for the tree to show up, I’d need to outline the sections. Rickrack would be the solution. I toyed with using several colors of green (above) but decided on just one deep shade.
This is where it currently stands. I don’t think it works.
So what went wrong?
- I didn’t make the backgrounds in the piecing lighter than the backgrounds for the tree. See how that works in the pattern image, below?
- The backgrounds should have all been more similar.
- They should have been placed randomly instead of symmetrically.
- I should have stopped sooner, as soon as I realized it wasn’t working.
What are my options at this point? I could:
- Leave it unfinished and chalk it up to lessons learned.
- Put it on my guild’s garage sale in February.
- Take it apart and fix it.
- Add an interesting border to distract from the center.
I don’t love any of these options and right now I’m just really unhappy about the whole debacle. What would you do? Please leave me a comment.
On the plus side, a valuable takeaway for me as a teacher is this:
Doing scrappy well is not easy, and I will keep learning about it for as long as I make quilts. It’s even harder if you have never tried it or you’re not confident that you can do it.
If this experience makes me a better teacher, more patient and more compassionate toward quilters who struggle with scrappy, then it’s a win. Because now I know for certain that no matter how many scrappy quilts you’ve made…
Scrappy can go crappy in a hurry.
And there’s not always an easy fix.
Quilt on,
You might like these posts:
My favorite little quilt block pattern (free!)
Tags: Christmas quilts, Laundry Basket Quilts, make extraordinary scrap quilts, scrap quilts, trunk shows
Jean
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I love the pattern. If it was mine, I think I would take the backgrounds off, set it aside for awhile, and come up with a new plan. So many fun elements in the tree. Love the ricrac basket handles.
WesternWilson
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Agreed! I am not an unsewing fan but once you do it it is always worth it! This will look great with the new background!
Linda Koster
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I love the tree! And you put a lot of work into it. If it were my project, I would remove the background and replace it with a darker beige tone on tone, something that would not look weird where it’s pieced. Or heck – cut the background away and appliqué the tree to a one-piece background. You could add another row of rickrack to overlap the existing one. I think outlining the tree with rickrack was genius!
Nancy
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Love the appliqué idea!
Sharon
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Diane—- THANK YOU for sharing the miss! So often teachers only show the hits – knowing that a very experienced scrap quilter can swing and miss is very reassuring to those less experienced!
Nancy Sue Arnoldy
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The tree itself looks great! And that’s where all the little pieces are. So taking off the big pieces of background and going with a consistent background may be worth the effort.
Amy F
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Thanks for sharing this Diane! It’s helpful to learn from others’ mistakes as well as my own. I have a similar project that didn’t get finished due to a huge mistake on my part. To be fair to myself, I was a beginner and didn’t understand the whole scant 1/4″ seam concept. It was a BOM and had 8 rows. I finished the first 6 rows using a regular quarter inch seam. The blocks were a bit off from the finished size stated in the pattern, but they fit together well enough. Then on the 7th row I had learned about using a scant 1/4″ seam and happily began using it to piece! I think you know what’s coming next…the last 2 rows were larger than the rest and there was no rectifying that. But I learned several lessons from this and that’s always good! This unfinished project still sits in a bag (3 years later) in the closet underneath everything. I just can’t bring myself to get it out and fix it. I think it’s going to get donated to Goodwill the next time I go shopping there!
I adore this pattern and the applique’ is just beautiful! I would definitely set it aside and give myself time to process the whole thing. I completely understand your disappointment.
Toni McGee
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The tree is great! My suggestion will require unsewing and a string of muttering. The background seems chunky. You might still se able to use all those pieces if you’ll ‘pixelate’ them with other blenders. I can’t wait to see the fabulous final.
Dr K
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It looks like it might work if you just swapped the parts that look like columns to the outsides of the background. Then the scrappy nature would blend more harmoniously.
Jennifer Grist
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Well done for finding a positive side to this, in that it can be a teaching point, but I would feel very frustrated not to have completed the beautiful work you’ve already done. I thought at first, put it on one side, unpick it and change the background when I have had more time to perhaps gather together a more uniform collection of fabrics or change the placement of the existing pieces to avoid that distracting symmetry but the idea of cutting out the tree to appliqué it to a one piece background is very appealing!
Jen in sc
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It might be ok if you quilt the background in an all over pattern like a stipple or cross hatch in a contrasting thread such as green or red. Then the beiges will blend together and recede.
Tammy Jo Allison
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I’m with Jean, take the background off and set it aside ( which goes totally against my grain as a quilter), then find a darker background that would make the tree stand out.
Wendy Johnston
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Your tree is beautiful, so I would take the background off. I agree with the suggestions from Jean and Linda. You may feel better by taking the background off as soon as possible. And/or work on another quilt now, and return to your tree quilt when your frustration has diminished.
Susan Conner
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The one fabric that is the most obtrusive to me is the darker side borders in the center. I would pull off the lighter side borders and use them next to the tree Ditch the darker fabric. Maybe go scrappy squares with the total length borders. I enjoyed seeing this and experiencing your dilemma and knowing other’s solutions.
Jance
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I have this pattern also. Like all the other comments, I would remove the background and replace with a tone on tone. Also love the rickrack!
Julia Graves
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When I look at the sample quilt, it appears to me that the background is darker than the block backgrounds, not lighter. When I compare your quilt and the sample quilt, you have used a lot of dark greens and the sample uses more medium greens. Your quilt has a lot of value differential between the darkest values and the light backgrounds that you used in the blocks. To me the third row from the top really stands out because of so much dark and very little light, sandwiched between two light rows. The row of square in square boxes.
The rick rack was genius and really helps pull the tree together. I would try filling the background with applique distractions so that you don’t look at the background so much. What about hanging some ornaments from the tree? Putting some presents under the tree? Hanging wreaths? Dancing candy canes? Stars? Hanging garlands along the edges? Find a fun Christmas print and cut out cute little elements and applique/ broderie perse them on.
Do you have more of the floral to replace those two side bars on the second and third tier? That area of the background stands out to me. The rest looks okay.
I definitely think it’s worth saving. Thx for sharing!
Holly Wagner
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I think it’s great. To me the point of scrappy is to use and not waste. If you take it apart, then there’s waste. I think a beautiful quilt on it and I think it would look great.
Peggy
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Hey Diane, if you don’t want to take the quilt apart, I would be happy to do that for you! It is beautiful; just get a different background fabric…bring it to guild this month, and I will use my seam ripper and help you out!!!
Kay Chester
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Life is not perfect and neither are quilts. Quilt it up then put away until next Christmas. If the quilt (error) still bothers you, then donate. There is a happy home just waiting to be blessed with your endeavor. Happy New Year!
Linda
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I would take it apart & appliqué it to a solid background. It is too pretty to waste. I love the rickrack & the tree, just not the background. It is frustrating, but now you know to audition the background! Scrappy can be difficult for me, I don’t see what’s wrong until it jumps out after it’s finished.
Jayne Debus
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Do u know of a book with applique vines. I want to do some on a border but can’t find patterns. Thanks
Anne
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If it were mine (and I’ve made similar mistakes many a time), I’d carefully cut out the assembled tree shape, maybe leaving a 1/4-1/2″ margin, and turn it into any applique on a new one-piece background. That tree is too beautiful to just give up on.
Lynn Rendle-Short
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It’s a beautiful tree Diane! I agree with the others who advise to unsew the background and replace with a darker neutral. The lighter parts of the background jump way forward and claim your attention instead of receding and letting the tree have all the credit. Thanks so much for sharing your journey and thoughts with this quilt.
Barbara
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What a gorgeous tree! I agree with those who say it’s too beautiful to trash! If you use a more uniform background, the tree will pop! While unsewing is a pain, it will be well worth it.
zeddie
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I agree with the other posters that appliquing the tree onto a different background would solve the value problem. I also think that pixellating the background and using a variety of neutral squares (or bricks) like another commenter mentioned could work too. You have a few quilts where you have used a scrappy pieced background (like Star Silhouettes) and a pastel brick quilt that was featured in a magazine that I cannot remember the name of. That might be an option but it will involve more work and if you’re going to take the backgrounds off and repace them, you might just want to subsitute an unpieced darker neutral background for each section instead of piecing a background!