Until now...Hopefully mine will come up in searches for "bad quilts" cause it's baaaaaaad...

But I still love it.

I finished the whole quilt top on Saturday, but not before I made quite a mess. It ended up taking up nearly 3 rooms before I got down to the actual quilting. I had to hang the top from a doorway so I could see what it looked like while I pieced together the second part of it.I learned that I really didn't like piecing the quilt together much. I liked placing the colors together, but actually sewing the patches together (and pressing), and doing that about a hundred times kinda made me a little annoyed. Perhaps next time I will try applique. The cool thing though was when it came time to sew the two parts together. I had really no idea of how it would actually turn out until I had sewn it. It was a surprise.Here is where I stopped the patchwork out of frustration, and laziness. With the two pieces sewn together, I had decided I would take the easy way out, and sew two large pieces of fabric to either side of the quilt simply so I wouldn't have to do anymore dreaded patches. I do love it though. It's so crazy, and crooked.I went to the fabric store looking for gingham (my favorite print in the world), batting, thread, backing fabric, and a thimble. I can't believe I didn't have a thimble.I had sewn the yellow gingham onto either sides of the quilt top, and moved onto pressing the whole thing AGAIN. This time I had to move into the living room so I could use the floor to sandwich it. This is the point where my quilt has officially taken over three rooms. I pressed the backing, and cut the batting bigger than the quilt. Anyone up for a quilt sandwich?
I had to start basting, and marking my stitches after all that sandwiching. Basting proved to be my downfall. I thought for a moment at the fabric store that I may need more pins for this project, but decided against it thinking that if I ran out of straight pins, I would have plenty of safety pins to continue to baste with. I didn't have enough of either. Since I'm not a quilter, I'm really not too sure of the where's, and how's of basting, I just put pins where I thought they should go. I think that is WRONG. My improper basting is now causing my quilt to shift as I move it. More on that in a moment.
You can see it (hopefully) puckering, and just looking awkward in general.
With the whole thing basted, I was able to move onto the actual quilting. Some people mark their stitches before they quilt, but I really didn't have a pattern, or plan, so I thought I would start stitching. Just to see what would happen. I marked the stitches on the gingham because I wanted big zigzags there, but they turned into big curves, which I then decided to just go with.


Here's the problem. I don't learn from watching, or listening. I can't pay attention. I have to do it, make a million mistakes, and do it again until I get it right. When I jumped into this project, I thought the quilting would be the easy part. I mean how hard is it to do a running stitch over a large area over, and over again? So I really didn't do much reading on the actual quilting. I only researched the patchwork, because I was afraid of effing that part up.

Well shame on me for not at least reading a bit about it. Shame on me for being over confident. Cause now I have a feeling that I have a potentially bad quilt on my hands.

I didn't realize the importance of the stitches until I was actually doing them. I felt they looked a little strange. So each time I took a break I googled a little more about hand stitching. I noticed the problem early Sunday morning. My stitches were inconsistent, and way too long. My basting was bad, so the whole thing is shifting causing weird puckers on the front, and noticeable pleats on the back.


So to make myself feel a little better I googled (images) "bad quilts" to witness other peoples atrocities, and of course I didn't find any. Sure they weren't to my liking, but they still appeared to be perfect.

Oh well. Serves me right for trying to boost my self esteem by laughing at others. So hopefully now an actual "bad quilt" will show up in the searches, making some other quilter happy by laughing at my monstrosity.

The curved stitches have now turned into big sunshines complete with rays, and my stitches have gotten a bit better. Despite the obvious problems, I am really enjoying this project, and I'm pumped to see the finished project.

I've been wanting to learn to quilt. I have been reading about it for some time now, and just never actually start on one.

Every time I would see a quilt I would get up, go over to my scrap boxes, look at them for a long time, and then walk away. Quilts just seem to intimidate me. There's the measuring, the cutting, the precise 1/4 inch seam allowance, and since I don't have a quilting foot/machine, I would be faced with the time consuming task of hand quilting.

Oh, and there's so many different types of quilts out there. Should I try a patchwork, applique, embroider it? Should I hand quilt it, or tie it?

And they always look so perfect. I love a brightly colored, simple patchwork quilt. But what if I can't cut my squares straight enough, or my seams aren't straight? I could ruin the whole project.

And don't forget about the patterns...ugh.

I decided to go to you tube, and type "how to make a quilt". I found some lame tutorials, which really didn't teach me anything as a beginner (but will probably go back to if I need to do any troubleshooting) I did run across this woman from San Fransisco who decided to make a vlog documenting her creation of a quilt.

I thought she was a crazy old lady who had never made a quilt before. It wasn't until I watched a few more installments that she was indeed a very experienced quilt maker. And an artist. And a child of the sixties. And quite intelligent. Extremely funny. And very entertaining.

I had to stop watching somewhere around video 18 (I had to get to bed), but I had learned far more about quilting watching her quilt, and talk about her long life than I would have watching a
tutorial.

* to experience her you tube channel click here *

She decided to let the fabric tell her what it wants her to do. She didn't seem to have a plan for it. I thought that was quite interesting, and thought I could try the same technique. Before watching her create, I thought all quilts had perfect squares, flowers, borders...

In her first vlog, she explained her inspiration for the crazy quilt, and it has since become my inspiration.

* to learn about the quilters of Gee's Bend click here *

The quilts of the Gee's Bend women are not always perfect. They were mostly made from their old clothes, and whatever fabrics they could find. The quilts are not old, and stogy looking. They have a very modern even artistic look to them.

I felt I could take a more chaotic approach to my quilt, but use the same Americana/New England aesthetic that I love so much, by using the right fabrics.

I also decided to document my first voyage into quilt making myself by posting my progress here.

This is my fabric cabinet. The two boxes on the top shelf is where I keep all of my scraps. I wonder if I could open a "scrap store".
I dumped out both boxes of scraps, and made a pile of my favorite fabrics. I tried to pick out fabrics of the same weight to avoid anymore wonkiness than is already expected.
Since I keep all of my scraps in crumpled up in tubs, I had to press anything that I planned on using.
This is my pile of scraps all nicely pressed. It wont be long before they are tossed all around my dining room. I'm using a combination of new fabrics, fabrics that were given to me, and fabric that was upcycled from former projects.



After pressing all the scraps in the world, I could begin cutting. I decided I wanted to use squares, and rectangles, but refrained from measuring them as I cut. I don't want it to look perfect, and I figure not measuring the patches would be the best way to do it.

I don't really have much room to work on such a large project. So when it came time to piece everything together, I had to pull the leaf out of my dining room table, and work there. It still wasn't enough room, and I quickly began working on the floor right next to the table.
Since I don't have the room to lay the whole thing out before sewing, I decided to work on it in two parts. So with the first part laid out I could begin pinning, and sewing.


I think my dog died under the table waiting for me to finish.

I'm not sure how much sewing I can get done today, but I'm off of work on Saturday, so I should be able to finish the sewing then.

I'm really excited!