Hello out there. I dropped off the radar for a while. In fact I dropped off for seven weeks. This journey I am on to be a better quilter is important to me but like everyone else out there I got a little discouraged. In fact, I had a bad case of quilter's block. You know like writer's block only with quilting. That and probably more than a little bit of depression.
In my last installment, I told you how I totally messed up my second Ribbon Dance quilt. Well I spent the following week tearing out the stitching of the border and the bottom two rows. Except it hit me that I didn't need to separate every block apart. I just needed to take out the stitching between the 6th and 7th row. Then I picked out the stitching between the 2nd & 3rd and the 4th & 5th columns of those two rows. This gave me 3 - 2x2 blocks.
The first week of December I stacked those blocks onto each other and ended up with a 2x6 column. I sewed that onto the center and my now 8x6 top was ready for borders. Except that now I had borders that no longer fit my top. At that point I was really down and for a while very unmotivated. In fact I didn't even want to be in my studio. I was starting to hole up in my bedroom again. A sure sign of depression.
It was the second week of December, I was down a tech at work, I had people taking vacation, and a really nasty bug was running rampant through work. Long hours and lots of stress had me short tempered and gave me a bad attitude. I had done nothing in the way of Christmas preparations and had some more shopping to do. I just didn't have the energy to put into quilting and everything else. Like I said I was down. Kim came home on the 14th and I just had one week until I was on vacation as well. That helped but not enough. I didn't even look at my projects.
While I was cleaning up in the Studio a bit to make it nicer for Christmas, Killian's girlfriend asked me who the Christmas Lemonade Quilt was for. I had been wondering who to give it to the whole time I was making it. When Joy asked who the quilt was for, I was trying to figure out what to get my friend Liz for Christmas and it hit me the quilt was for Liz.
That quilt evolved from a bargain purchase that wouldn't work for the project I had in mind. I was determined to make something with that purchase. I ended up with a wonderful quilt. When I met Liz I was her supervisor. The housekeeping staff need more supervision than Sanitation could provide so management temporarily put them under quality. Shortly after that we ended up firing 2 of the 3 house keepers. Apparently Liz was the only one who had a decent work ethic. Morning reports with her led me to realize we had lots in common. I enjoyed talking with her. But I was her supervisor and decorum dictated distance. A few months later, housekeeping went back to Sanitation. That was when Liz and I became fast friends. It seemed that the Christmas Lemonade quilt was symbolic of our friendship. I decided that the quilt would be her Christmas present. That meant I had to finish binding and put a label on it. I started stitching the binding down on December 18th and once that was done I put the label on it. That was the 20th. It was wrapped and under her tree on the 21st.
That seemed to break the quilting block so to speak. I then moved onto stitching down the binding on the first ribbon dance quilt. The label was on it by Christmas Eve. At which point, Christmas took center stage.
The day after Christmas, I got to work on fixing the inner border for the second ribbon dance quilt. I had a long piece left over. I gathered all of the pieces, starched and pressed them stiff. then I sewed them back into a long strip and then measured and cut the inner border pieces. There are more seams than there were but that's okay. Once the were on it was time to cut the outer border. On December 29th, I put the outer borders on and made the back. I then got the quilt on the machine. I also wound the bobbins and threaded Millie with the lavender colored thread I wanted to use. Before starting the quilting part, I made the binding and set it aside. The next day I quilted it. On New Years Eve, I trimmed the quilt, and sewed the binding to the front. That night I turned the binding and using one of my favorite gadgets, wonder clips. I even started stitching it down.
I didn't finish it though and in fact I didn't finish it until just last week. I still had some time off and the star quilt needed to be quilted. Binding I can do in the evening after work, quilting I need blocks of time to do. So I made the back to the star quilt and got it on the machine.
I have decided to name the star quilt Starry Night. It is made of batiks in blues greens and purples. The sashing, back, and binding is an indigo batik with little white star corner stones. It reminds me of Van Goth's Starry Night. Which by the way is one of my favorite paintings. I didn't start out to pay homage to that painting, it just turned out that way.
Anyway, I found a really cool star and swirl pattern to quilt Starry Night with. I just seemed perfect for it. Now what color thread to use? I went with silver. I got bold and used silver in the bobbin even though the back is almost black. Than means the stitching really stands out on the back. I am really happy with how it turned out. No, its not perfect and my mistakes are visible, but I am happy with it and I have figured out who is getting it. Now I just need to trim and bind that quilt and of course put a label on it.
I am really glad that I got past the quilter's block. I am even happier that I am getting projects done. I also know that Liz is a big reason why it happened. I wanted so much to give her something more than a sweater or trinket. Finishing her quilt broke the block. It also reminded me why I was working on these projects, for the people I love. Liz loved the quilt by the way. She won't let anyone else touch it. And when I told her the story behind it, it made it even more special.
Sometimes I forget that quilts don't have to be done on a deadline. I forget that they don't have to be perfect. I think I need to allow myself to move on and come back to the project later. I think that part of my quilter's block was due to the fact that I was trying to get these two quilts done and it became a chore instead of being fun. And because I kept imposing deadlines on myself, I was getting discouraged. Also I was not letting myself start another project before finishing the ones I was working on. Sometimes we need to take a break from projects, especially big ones.
I have decided to do a couple of quick little throw quilts before starting another big quilt. I need a couple of easy ones to get my creative juices flowing.
Have you ever had Quilter's Block? How did you get past it?
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