Fibermania

I used to piece...

December 1981, I made my first quilt, the Log Cabin on the right. Why is it that beginners bite off so much of a challenge? 100 blocks, cut by hand, sans rotary cutter, and made from the cheesiest cottons from like the store which preceeded K-Mart, and Zayre's which is also defunct. I used a king size sheet as the backing and hand quilt it using a BACK STITCH because a running stitch seemed inadequate. Oy Madone. (The other quilt, the Trip Around the World, was like #5, made in '85). Hand quilted.

There was no quilt store near me so I bought designer cotton remnants from a bedspread factory, cheap. I designed intricate piecing and appliqued those circular medallions by hand. Hand quilted too. Eeekk.

But the colors were so dull . I taught myself how to dye and then my colors came alive.

This Lollapalooza Log Cabin is from the early 90's when piecing was still in my repertoire. Machine pieced and machine quilted. Not bedsize.

But I had other ideas, and piecing or applique would not get the job done. Fusing came to the rescue. Everything became a fused quilt after that and nothing bed-quilt-like got made by me.

Until now...

Now a bed quilt, a mere twin size, 72x96" seems OVERWHELMING.

I panicked in the studio yesterday and quit before I started. But then in the middle of the night, I got up and found my sketchbook and a pencil and began to design. If I divided up the work into four smaller segments of 36x48", then it wouldn't be such an effort. And if could make large simple blocks, then it wouldn't become a 'lifetime career' to make this quilt.

The simpler quilts are the ones that are catching my eye these days, and being basically lazy, and non-finicky, I want this new quilt to be easy, fast and fun, like all the books say. I can't be bothered with a ruler anymore, so it is eyeballing and slashing approximate sizes. The resulting quilt will no doubt be wonky, which I prefer over exacting and meticulous.

Wonky quilts are rarely examined for precision.

Here's the schematic for the Lollapalooza Log Cabin quilt. Using a full size paper pattern ( like 48x39") I cut apart the first vertical panel and began with the top block, making the corner of the log cabin first.

Each following strip didn't have to match the next vertical panel, except in the center. Not anymore planning than that.