I really love to quilt. It’s hard work, sometimes tedious, but overall awesome. The longest part of making my quilts are the many many hours it takes to hand-bind the entire thing. I never learned how to do it by machine, so it all gets done by hand!
There are a few awesome things about quilting.
The first? NEVER following a pattern! I have a few quilting books, tons of magazines, and I have only ever followed a pattern once, and it was for quilted placemats:
Don’t get me wrong, they looked awesome, but there’s just something about finding some cool quilt patterns, and mixing them with your own cool ideas to create something new. I like not following a specific measurement, and having to sit for a few hours figuring out all of the measurements myself. What size is the quilt? What size does each separate piece of fabric need to be (finished), which then means calculating what size I need to cut the fabric at to have enough for a 1/4 inch edge on every side?
I made this one in 2008 for my nephew Jacob (it was my first Quilt!):
I love choosing all sorts of awesome fabrics, mixing colours, shapes, and sizes, and then having to sit down and exercise those math skills I learned all those years ago. My only issue with designing the quilts myself? Buying fabric and realizing once all the pieces are cut and realizing I’m short fabric because I messed up my math and having to figure out a creative solution. But that’s kinda fun sometimes too (unless I mess up REALLY badly).
I made this one in 2009 for a friend of my Mom’s. My sister actually did the center spiral part, and I did all of the bordering, backing, and binding. I was given the center sewn together, and my sister didn’t know how I was going to finish it:
So, I guess I’m not an expert. Definitely not. I screw up a lot and have to restart some quilts from scratch, which not only takes a lot of time, but also costs a lot of money. My average quilt can cost a good $200 to about $350. You can imagine why screwing up badly isn’t the ideal thing. I suppose I just provided an argument as to why I SHOULD follow a pattern, but I still think it’s way more fun designing it myself. That way it’s not only hand-made, but also uniquely designed.
This one was made recently for my Grandmother. I started it two years ago, but because of how busy I was, and also neglected quilting a lot, I only finished it this year:
So, what am I working on now? Three quilts, with two awesome on the way to start one I finish the first three. Two are for family, one is for a friend, and the two ideas are for secret people.
Here’s a preview of some fabric I’m using for a couple of them:
You can check out more photos on my flickr.
Cheers,
T.
