Monday, June 15, 2009

almost caught up on the quilt-along

I decided to go with 2 lap-sized quilts (5x7 blocks, so 50"x70") instead of one massive quilt, and I finished up one top this weekend. I tried not worry too much about placing the blocks "nicely randomly". I had two each of 20 different blocks, so I put them in order in a stack (1-20, and 1-20 again), and then sewed them in pairs (2 pairs, put one block aside, 2 more pairs, put another block aside, etc.). Then I joined the 2 pairs for each row, and then added on the singles (for 5 blocks in each row). Each time, I didn't pay too much attention to which way I sewed them, just that I tried to not have the same fabric touch, which wasn't always possible. When I had my rows done, I laid those out on the floor and tried for the best layout then. I'm sure I could have done better if I'd taken more time, but I was TRYING to let go of my perfectionist tendencies. It was really good exercise, because that letting go is hard!!



Wait - what's up with the little feet?? Who's that hiding behind my quilt? :-)


3 comments:

  1. Pretty quilt. Isn't it nice to free up the control impulses and see what happens? What happened worked because you chose the fabrics well in the first place.

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  2. This is so pretty (and the photos with your daughter are great - I really like the blurred/streak effect of the quilt going up in the air).

    I have the same problem about "fabrics touching" and all that. Some quilt books would lead you to believe you need to spend hours doing block placement. I like Gwen Marston's books - she often shows examples of antique quilts where the quilter broke all the supposed design rules, and they look great!

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  3. I'm so with you there... I can't do "random" either...I can do "random organised" but not totally random.... It's come out lovely though yours...I'm just cutting my blocks now. I was wondering.. Is your husband very very tall? or is he dangerously leaning to the left over the stairs nearly falling down? lol! (assume that's your hubby holding it up) good job!

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