There is nothing to put on the pressure to create like a bestie, "D," saying that she'd like me to make a quilt for her to get me going again in my studio again. Finally. She reminded me that she had nothing made by me. I'm not good about treating what I make as worthy of serving as a gift for anyone. Yet she asked me many times to make something and donate it for a charity auction, and every time whatever I made from an funky art doll to a quilt or painted children's furniture sold at the fixed price and didn't even make it to auction. I need to stop messing around and work on that confidence. Will it ever come?
Sewing is generally easy for me (at least I know how to operate the machine), but it had been a while since I worked on piecing a quilt. The quilt D selected required a lot of different fabrics. Over the course of a year I added to my Kaffe Fassett stash, and buying more (some of which had been discontinued and out of print) so I had enough to make 94 unique blocks with no repeat of the main fabric, an almost as many unique fabric for the "branches" of the tree blocks. I sewed with what I had while waiting for the next delivery. Thank goodness for Etsy! Most days I tried to spend at least two hours cutting and sewing with great music blasting. There were times when things went smoothly, and times when everything went wrong and I made good use of my four letter word vocabulary.
My inspiration is the Arboretum quilt from Anne of springleafstudios.com who generously provided her instructions for making this divine quilt. These are just a tiny sample of my untrimmed blocks. The finished quilt photo is that of Spring Leaf Studios and what I hope mine will resemble.
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| Image from springleafstudios.com and made by Anne, owner of that blog and business |
The day before we gathered to celebrate D's birthday, I finished the last block and wrapped the stack, including a photo of the inspiration photo (she picked 3 and let me choose, so didn't know which one made the cut). It was almost a let down to no longer have a deadline. Now I can start trimming and piecing whenever I want. Ooh, the danger of not getting back to it.
Of course there is always real life - hosting the 1st birthday party for our one and only granddaughter, cat with bad medical news that means learning how to give a cat IV fluids every week, grand-baby gets REALLY sick which means I mask up and help, demolition begins for a remodel going on over my head, move out of our room, one adult kid moves back home for a few months and this was all in one week.
In the midst of chaos, I am going to try to keep creating. I was a much happier person when I was buzzing away at the machine or struggling to make fabric combination choices.
Time to make a mess!
