Mostly they mean me. Me. The person frantically typing on this laptop because it's quite late. And it's quite late because we have been making blocks. Alone.
Are you wondering how this happened? Fast. I attended a meeting for our church's 90th anniversary celebration, which will occur in the fall, about a month after our church fair.
Someone mentioned that our priest will celebrate his 50th birthday right after the celebration. So we have three important events tied to our church that happen about a month apart from each other. Boom, boom, boom. Three big events.
Father's birthday, we all nodded in agreement, needed to be extra nice. 50 years, after all. In two shakes of lamb's tail, I was making a quilt. That easy. That fast.
The good news is that when people say, "But I don't know anything about quilting," it translates into "you make the decisions as well as the quilt." At least that's how I translated it.
And that means I can make all design decisions. Ha! There's the silver lining. I'd be making all the decisions. Boom.
I asked Father what his favorite liturgical season is--so I could choose colors. Since he quickly answered Easter and those times of the year when we anticipate the coming of Christ, I decided that white and red would be great colors. It turns out that he loves the color red. What is better than a red/white quilt?I worked up a quick quilt in EQ8 and finally decided to create something of this order. The white will be used for signatures, and the red will be frames. There are no other options: this is what I'm willing to do.
I pulled almost every red from my stash and started cutting 2½ x 8½" strips of red and 4½ x 8½" strips of white. Sew. Sew. Sew. Boom, tonight 132 blocks are ready to be signed and sewn. That will give us a 88" X 96" queen-size quilt. Two weeks later, we're here. All the blocks sewn and ready for the next step.
I'm not sure that this quilt really fits into the improvisational definition, but since I pulled fabrics to cut as I went along, and I still don't know how this is going to work with what others have in mind, I'll say it's iffy enough to go into Kaja and Ann's AHIQ #32. The first link goes to Kaja's blog, this one goes to Ann's. (You really should visit both.)
When have you heard those words, "Let's make a quilt." If you have a way of avoiding those "requests" please share: I have nothing but a deep pit.
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8 comments:
Well I suppose if you have to do it all yourself then it can be good to be able to pick and choose what you like within the guidelines. I think this will look great.
Let's make a quilt. Only topped by "Will you make a quilt for me to give to ______?" Sure. The problem with the second is they want to determine design, color and timeframe. They want to tell you the night before they need it the all those things and can you wrap it because I won't have time. I quit with that when 3 years ago a friend asked me to make a quilt for her mom. She wanted pictures of her family and then when I asked her for the jpg files to print the pictures she told me to search o facebook for the ones that fit her criteria. I was retired and she worked. After stewing for 2 days I told her I couldn't do the quilt. I had already invested $150 in fabric that was not my taste and the photo transfer fabric. I don't get sucked in without clear guidelines anymore.
At the first mention I would respond "OK, so what day are "we" getting together to make this quilt." And then list the materials that "we" need to buy, and ask who the "we" is that is doing that part. And so on and so forth, until cutting sewing and quilting stages were covered!
This will be a wonderful quilt for a special occasion. You are a very nice person indeed to jump into the "pit" when you can see it in front of you. (I confess, I may have jumped in a few pits myself.) Good for you!
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches
"Lets make a quilt", "great idea, I'd be happy to donate you some fabric" or "that's a lovely offer, how generous of you"?
Given the time frame and (lack of ) help, this is a good design choice. Using a variety of reds will add depth. I will remember Kaja's responses when people try to suck me into something in future. It is hard for me to turn others down but I much prefer designing my own to making someone else's ideas come to fruition - especially when they don't quilt.
Thanks for linking with AHIQ.
Are you running low on reds? Just let me know :-) So looking forward to this gorgeous beauty, candy cane of a quilt.
Thanks for linking up with AHIQ!
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