The Quilt Sandwich
This morning I will be putting together the quilt sandwich for my son's quilt. He pointed out that I started that quilt when he six or seven, he's now thirteen and that, well, the fabrics might not be appropriate any more. My response, I made this for you with love, it will keep you warm until I get around to making a more teenage appropriate quilt and hey, doesn't everyone still love Pikachu?
I've been laying the backing fabric out and I have discovered why I'm probably never going to go down in the history books as one of America's master quilters. I don't have a lot of patience. I can cross 100,000 stitches to turn blank fabric into a piece of art but I can't take five seconds to straighten out my fabric, make sure the batting is lined up and then make sure that the quilt top and the edges are all straight. It's not easy work and while the finished product is something to be excited about there's a reason handmade quilts cost $800, it's to reimburse the quilter for her chiropractic bills.
I love hand piecing a quilt top. There is something so very peaceful about sewing little pieces of fabric into a much larger block. I love that aspect of quilting. I also love collecting different fabrics because I am a fabric whore. I can't help myself. I dream of quilts, I love planning them, I don't mind the cutting out and I'm not a rotary cutter kind of chick, I prefer tracing the pieces and cutting with scissors which can add days or even weeks to the time it takes to piece a quilt, but it's ok, like my cross stitching I readily accept that quilting is a slow, time consuming process, but then it comes to wrapping it up, making the quilt sandwich and I want to fudge, I want rush along, I don't care about doing it right it's just DO IT already.
So it's probably save to say that my quilts will never be in the Houston Quilt show except as examples of what not to do....
Stay tuned for pics of the finished quilt...
Showing posts with label quilting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quilting. Show all posts
Friday, March 6, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wannabe, Poser
A few years ago I hand pieced a quilt for my youngest son. As you can see from the picture, it's still a quilt top because I am terrified of attempting to turn it into a quilt. There is something so intimidating about the whole concept of the quilt sandwich. His quilt was intended to be an I Spy quilt but if one finds the process of making a quilt sandwich intimidating they sure as hell are going to find a quilt pieced of hexes and triangles a bit over the top. 
I thought about all the novelty fabrics I had been purchasing and decided that a 9 Patch might be a fun and easy way to create an I Spy quilt. So I call this top my Maybe I Spy quilt top. I mean 9 Patch is so common, I had to hip up it's name a little.
I love a lot of these fabrics, some are too young, like the Bob the Builder block but most are ok even for a 13 yr old. Oh yeah, I'm going to sandwich this baby up and he's going to sleep under it at least once.
At the time I made this quilt he was big into fishing off the local pier with his dad and I found this neat fishing lure fabric. If anything this quilt will be a nice connection to his younger years. Younger years at 13.
Because once again the Clueless Crocheter is mixing colors and attempting a third try at making a 63 Squares afghan. The oldest son's favorite colors are blue, green and yellow. I figure it can either be a sharp looking afghan or a hideous monstrosity and for some reason I'm leaning heavily to the monstrosity description. All the squares will be edged in the yellow as that makes the most sense in my lack of color theory brain.
I thought about all the novelty fabrics I had been purchasing and decided that a 9 Patch might be a fun and easy way to create an I Spy quilt. So I call this top my Maybe I Spy quilt top. I mean 9 Patch is so common, I had to hip up it's name a little.
I love a lot of these fabrics, some are too young, like the Bob the Builder block but most are ok even for a 13 yr old. Oh yeah, I'm going to sandwich this baby up and he's going to sleep under it at least once.
At the time I made this quilt he was big into fishing off the local pier with his dad and I found this neat fishing lure fabric. If anything this quilt will be a nice connection to his younger years. Younger years at 13.Dear Red Heart:
Be afraid, be very afraid. Why?
Because once again the Clueless Crocheter is mixing colors and attempting a third try at making a 63 Squares afghan. The oldest son's favorite colors are blue, green and yellow. I figure it can either be a sharp looking afghan or a hideous monstrosity and for some reason I'm leaning heavily to the monstrosity description. All the squares will be edged in the yellow as that makes the most sense in my lack of color theory brain.
I will also be attempting two other 63 Squares afghans for the other two sons. One will be green, blue and white and the other will be red, black and gray. While right now I say I will be making two more 63 Squares afghans I may end up using patterns from the 200 Crochet Blocks book by Jan Eaton. Because it's possible those 63 squares will be getting old by the time I get to the third afghan.
Either way I'm sure before this afghan adventure is over Red Heart will have my crochet hooks confiscated and my yarn purchasing privledges discontinued if there is a huge drop in the sales of their yarn due to the hideousness of my WIP. Seriously it could happen!
Why crochet with Red Heart? I have friends that would die before they would knit or crochet with Red Heart. Well first of all the yarn is durable, it will be around when everyone and everything else on the planet is gone and not fade one teeny tiny bit. Second, my sons are never going to handwash anything. Making them a blanket from anything other than yarn or wool that can be machine washed would be a huge error and would end up being a felted dog or cat bed one day. Thirdly, and probably most importantly at the moment, Red Heart fits my budget.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)