On Perfection

This quilt has been a UFO for a very long time. I think I started it in about 2011. The pattern came from a magazine. No, I don't remember what magazine. No, I don't remember what the pattern was called, probably something like "thousand pyramids" or maybe "flatiron." I lost the pattern years ago, and I had to use existing triangles that I had already cut to make a new template when I was piecing it together since I was short on triangles. Often quilts become UFOs when they have problems. I started this quilt before I realized that starching fabric that you have pre-washed before you use it is A Good Thing. Tiny triangles, no starch, bias edges--and you get stretch. I could already tell by the way the triangles were going together when I was in the block-stage, that all was not well. These triangles were NOT going to go together smoothly. So I put it away. And let it sit. And sit.

I took it out again in fall of 2020. And I decided that I wasn't going to worry about the technical problems, I was just going to get it done. I put it up on my design wall, rearranged it a bit, cut some more triangles, rearranged it some more, sewed it into a quilt top, and basted it. I fudged where I could, and where I couldn't, I sewed through those triangle points without a regret. (And then I basted it and let it sit for a year while I coped with 2021.) I finally got it quilted and I am finishing the binding. And I realized that I love this quilt. I started it with the skills I had at the time. I'm finishing it with the skills I have now. And even knowing how imperfect it is, I still find it beautiful.

Springtime 2022

It's been over a year of radio silence on the blog, although not a year without quilting.

2020 had it's challenges, but I enjoyed working from home and adapted to social isolation just fine (sometimes being an introvert is actually a benefit). However, due to various factors, pretty much entirely work-related (I work full-time, quilting isn't my day job), 2021 was a complete dumpster fire. All of the work-related stuff eventually culminated in me joining the Great Resignation.

I stayed with one group, in a couple of roles, for nearly 20 years, and now I am starting over in a new group (same agency, completely different division). I think I'm still in shock a little. I am learning tons of new things, though, and doing work more related to what I went to school for. It's going to take a while to settle in, but I think it was the right choice for me.

Now that i look back, I probably stayed too long in my last job; maybe 20 years is too long to do anything. I would have grown more if I had sought different opportunities earlier. Now that it is over, I can maybe take a deep breath and get a little more quilting done.

During 2021 I continued to work on unfinished projects, and I also have been trying to use of some of the bags of leftover scraps from old projects.

I am down to six unfinished projects. I've done less quilting in the past few months as I have been doing background reading for my new job and exercising more. It's still nice enough to go for walks outside, but it won't be for much longer.

And Some Were Finished

I did a photo session in the yard (my neighbors driving by asked if I was doing a show) of the quilts I’ve finished this year so far.

I really like the way this Kentucky Crossroads quilt came together. I started it in 2019. It is based on a block from Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I have been trying to use white and black in some of my quilts.

I started this Carpenter’s Star Variation wallhanging at the beginning of the pandemic. It feels quiet and ordered to me, and I’ve spent a lot of time in teleconferences looking at it on my design wall. I’ve been changing out the quilts on the design wall a lot this year, maybe in part because I’ve had a lot of time for quilting during the pandemic, and also because quilt studio is now my home office so I spend a lot of time looking at my design wall. I finally cleaned the windows in my studio because I spend so much time in there working and I kept noticing how dirty they were.

I finally finished this blue and white quilt that I call Twelve Crowns, I think I started it in 2016 or 2017. I designed it based on a couple of blocks I found in Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I was very indecisive about the border and how to quilt it, so it took way longer than it should have.

This Tessellation wallhanging is from a pattern by Gyleen Fitzgerald. I started it in about 2009 in a class she taught at my local quilt guild. I didn’t use a walking foot when I sewed the border on the first time and it stretched and I didn’t feel like fixing it so it spent a long time in a box. And then I couldn’t decide how to quilt it. It’s finally finished and I’ve been using it to cover the TV, although it isn’t wide enough. I hate looking at a bank screen.

I started this Double Irish Chain quilt a couple of years ago to use up some of the 2-inch squares that I cut from my scraps.

The quilt is reversible. I put together some leftover blocks from another project to make the backing.

I started this rectangular pattern during the pandemic. It is from a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Rectangle Wrangle, but I changed the border to one I found in a book on border patterns. Quilts with very simple patterns really benefit from pieced borders, they add a lot of interest. I bought more black and still ran out, I had to substitute some gray and brown in the binding. I quilted it with a clamshell design.

I started the Dresden Hexagon Star in 2017. We went on vacation in Michigan and I wanted an easy hand applique project to work on. This is the second of the two Dresden plate quilts I made from the blocks. In the first quilt I cut into squares based on a Missouri Star quilt tutorial Youtube video. I decided to try cutting the rest of the blocks into hexagons for the second quilt. I had this one longarmed by The Quilt Peddler because it was so big. I love the way it turned out.

This Quilt of Valor started from a bag of leftover X-blocks and scraps from the last one I made. I dug through my scraps for pieces to make more X-blocks and the red and white star blocks. I have been digging in my quilt studio and finding lots of Ziploc bags full of scraps that I am trying to use up. I made 5 backings from scraps. It is interesting improvising with what I have. Strips are pretty generic, but I also have orphan blocks, half-square triangle units, crumb blocks, string-pieced strips, and leftover triangles, Dresden wedges, and diamonds. If the fabric is already cut into something, it suggests a path forward, a quilt half-formed. Sometimes I will combine scraps from several old projects together, sometimes the scraps won’t mix and need to become something separate. I see more quilts and quilt backs coming from the scrap bags in the months to come.

Kittens and Quilting

We adopted a couple of kittens in June. They are cute and energetic and curious and I had to lock them out of my quilt studio (which has now also become my work-from-home office) due to an inability to sufficiently kitten-proof the room. They love to wrestle with each other. Here they are wrestling on a pandemic project.

I’ve never had kittens in the house before, only adult cats. They get into more things. I have to lock them in a bedroom to baste a quilt so they don’t burrow under it, wrestle on it, and try to eat the safety pins. They are pretty adorable, though. They are a brother and sister from the same litter, and after they finish wrestling, more often than not you find them sleeping in a pile together.

I am still working from home. I’ve been reading and quilting and going for walks around the neighborhood in my spare time, but still don’t get out much. We have actually been considering getting a camper so there is some chance we might get a vacation this year. We are also thinking about building a detached porch/shed in the backyard so there is somewhere to sit (socially distanced) in the backyard. I am such a mosquito-magnet, unless I am walking (moving target!) I pretty much can’t sit outside for most of the year.

On a quilty note, in a quest to tackle some of my many UFOs (unfinished objects), last year I finished 13 quilts. After finishing so many last year, I took a break from machine quilting for 7 months, so my finishes have slowed this year, though I did finally start machine quilting again this summer. I have been thinking about what my goal should be this year (last year it was to finish one UFO per month, on average). At first I thought I should try to finish at least two UFOs for every new quilt that I start, so even if I slowed down I’d still have fewer net projects in varying stages of completion. Now I think that my goal should just be to quilt my way through all the finished tops. I pretty much always have a backlog of several quilts waiting for quilting. I did finish this Kentucky Crossroads quilt, though.

I’ve been analyzing why it takes me so much longer to do machine quilting than piece quilt tops. It isn’t the actual hours spent. I have a vintage plug-in clock I use to measure how long it takes me to machine quilt a project, and it ranges from about an hour for a wallhanging to 14 hours for a densely quilted queen-sized project; most quilts are between 4 and 8 hours, which I usually do over 2 to 5 days. I think the biggest reason is that machine quilting has a high mental overhead. It takes a lot of concentration or focus to coordinate the machine speed and the motion of the quilt to obtain even stitches while free-hand doodling a pattern. I also have to prepare for quilting by clearing the tables of other projects so they aren’t swept off the tables by the quilt as it is being quilted, so I can pretty much only do machine quilting while I am set up for it. I usually will quilt 3 to 5 projects in a row, and then get fatigued and switch back to piecing for a few months. By the time I get back to machine quilting, I have pieced a few more quilt tops so the quilting backlog remains.

I should probably start piecing more complex quilt backs in order to make up for the fact that I piece faster than I quilt, two projects for the price of one. I’ve always liked pieced backs but tend to go with simple patterns like wide stripes that come together fairly quickly, but I have experimented with sewing leftover blocks into the back. I found a bunch of blue and white scraps that I am piecing into a quilt back. I have enough green scraps to make another back and other odds and ends that could be put to good use in a quilt back. I have at least 3 finished tops in the closet that don’t have a back. But the kitties think I should just relax.

Everything From Home

This year keeps getting more surreal. They have reopened most businesses in my state, only to close down bars again as coronavirus cases increase by thousands per day. I think they gave up. They decided it was too costly to close everything down so they are opening up regardless of the consequences. The protests against police brutality continue, and people are tearing down monuments to white supremacy as businesses reconsider racist branding. My office hasn't reopened, we are all still working from home. I expected none of this.

Instead of working on UFOs, I started 3 new quilts. I finished piecing this Carpenter's Star variation wall-hanging, but I haven't basted or quilted it yet.



I am still piecing a zigzag border for this Bonnie Hunter pattern ('Rectangle Wrangle'). I decided it needed a double zigzag, so I still have a lot more work to do on it. Pieced borders take a lot of extra time, but they add so much to a simple pattern like this one.



I don't have any photos of the third quilt I started. I'll post some later; I am still working on a pieced border for it. I need to start machine quilting again.

Life as we know it

My county is under a stay-at-home directive (city parks are still open and walking in neighborhoods is still permitted, as are essential shopping trips, although the 6-foot rule is in place; no gatherings of more than 10 people and an 11 pm-5 am curfew). I've been working from home for the past week. Most of the other employees in my office are also. At first I thought it might be a good opportunity to take a little leave--maybe only work half-days, and get some good uninterrupted time in on a few work projects that need 3-4 hours straight of good concentration time to make progress. Yeah, not so much. I managed to "only" work 37.5 hours this week (but I am still over my scheduled hours for the month so far), and was on the phone or in various teleconferences several hours every day, so no dedicated project-time. I rotate between a portable laptop desk on casters in my quilt studio and the living room sofa. No time to get to special home projects (everyone on social media seems to be cleaning the attic and/or tearing every shrub out of their yard). No extra quilting time, although I did cut the background diamonds and triangles and get my String Star quilt up on the design wall last weekend (I am not scheduled to work weekends, so I try not to).



I cut the freezer paper foundation patterns in January 2019 and sewed the strings to them over the course of 2019 and early 2020--I got most of them sewn over the holidays and in January of this year. All that is left is the final quit top assembly, since all the blocks have been made. I got 4 rows sewn together last weekend and 4 rows sewn in the evenings during the week.

And no, this hasn't even made a dent in my scrap collection.

Corona Quilting

In the midst of all the uncertainty surrounding the Coronavirus, I've been doing much more reading than quilting. Not that there's really any connection, but that is just what I'm up to lately. I have had the same scrappy quilt up on the design wall for the past five months, and progress has been slow. I built some string blocks of 60-degree diamonds and triangles, but I can't start laying that one out until I finish the top on the design wall. I finally got inspired to pull some fabrics for a new quilt, but haven't settled on a pattern yet. I've been in a very neutral-color mood. So here is some virtual quilting inspired by the Coronavirus craziness.

Coronaviruses get their name from the club-shaped protein spikes that cover the surface of the virus particles. The Latin root of corona means "crown" or "halo" or "wreath." So I've been searching through Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns for blocks with a crown theme and drafting blocks in EQ7. The quilt above includes block '2048-Memory Wreath/Crown of Thorns' and block '2169-Coronation/Free Trade.'

I went to the grocery store today. The shelves in the toilet paper aisle were bare. They have cancelled all work-related travel for the next 30 days. We are reviewing employees' digital needs in case we all need to work from home (who doesn't have a work laptop? Who doesn't have wifi access at home?) and three people in our workgroup are already working from home due to having traveled internationally or having a family member that traveled somewhere or had contact with someone who traveled to a city where people had the virus. We don't know if it will mostly pass us by, or get worse. So in the meantime, I am designing digital quilts.