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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Life lessons from fabric

Welcome if you are coming over from Amy's Bloggers' Quilt Festival.  Often it's so hard to decide which quilt to showcase, but it wasn't this time.  Many of you will have seen this quilt recently in this post but if I think back on the quilts I've made/finished in the last six months, this one makes me smile!  A lot.

Let's start with the fact that the scraps from the trimming are my "avatar" in my blog heading!  That should tell me something.  When I thought the leftovers that were too too too tiny to repurpose were beautiful, it means I was loving the fabrics and the quilt.  And I was.
This is from Victoria at Bumblebeans and a tutorial that she created. When I saw her quilt and the others that popped up afterwards, I immediately started collecting solids.  I even used them in a challenge with two friends in order to buy more.  That's explained in the original post.
I pin.  I measure.  I like matchy-matchy.  I prewash fabrics.  I like to iron fabric.  I starch.  I rip if it doesn't suit me.  I am not a perfect quilter -- far from it.  Lightyears from it, actually.
But this quilt and process opened up pockets of freedom that I don't normally use.  No need to pin.  Eyeballing is close enough.  Trimming supersedes cutting...why take the time to be fussy!  It was so much fun and went so fast.
I smile every time I see this quilt and even unfold it occasionally to look at it.  I've decided that I will hang it so that I can see it more often -- and others can as well.  So - this time, it was easy to decide which quilt I wanted to share.

I hope you are making quilts that are giving you joy and expanding your horizons and teaching you all kinds of lessons -- both life lessons and quilt lessons.  This wave runner has definitely done all that for me!

Keep piecing!  Jan



34 comments:

  1. Great quilt - I love that it's opened up doors for you and ways of looking at things!

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  2. It's a fabulous quilt and sounds so liberating to be free to not be matchy matchy. I must try this some time.

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  3. Love your colors and improv. An improv quilt is on my very long quilting list.

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  4. Your quilt is wonderful! I've been wanting to do a solids quilt for a while now. I'm so inspired. :) Very, very lovely work.

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  5. What a beautiful, creative quilt!

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  6. This quilt makes me smile too!

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  7. Congrats on a great quilt and trying the free form approach. I too am usually a bit more measured shall we say. Also see you must like Kaffe fabrics from older posts. Check out my festival quilt that uses his fantastic prints.

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  8. I love it! I'm usually all about the measuring too, but had such fin making an improv quilt like this one. It really is liberating, isn't it!

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  9. nice graphic solids!

    Check out my blog if you can...

    Margaret Gunn
    www.quiltsoflove.blogspot.com

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  10. What a lovely post. I adore this quilt, it is beautiful!

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  11. Oh my goodness! I love soooo many things about this quilt :) Inspiring!

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  12. It's so very wonderful you need to make more and more and more!!!

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  13. I love this quilt and am glad you entered it into the festival! It's very inspiring!

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  14. That's a great quilt story! I love your result and happy to hear you enjoyed the process - I, too have been trying to 'let go' a bit and just wing it with free-piecing. It's not that easy.

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  15. Great quilt! Thanks for sharing it

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  16. This is a beautiful quilt. I love the colors and the varied strip and block sizes. It gives it so much movement!! I feel it has a bit of a "Gee's Bend" flavor to it. Wonderful!

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  17. Your wave runner came out awesome! I made one a few years back and it was liberating.

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  18. Beautiful! I love the look and color palette. How long did it take oyu to make?

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  19. WOW. Super-stunning-eyecatching-quilt!!! I love the solids, the design and your combination of colours! Keep smiling!!!
    Christine

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  20. That really is stunning! I wish it was mine:-)

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  21. Quilting amazes me. This is so awesome! Thanks for sharing at our Handmade Tuesdays party.

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  22. It is a beautiful quilt. Well done! And its fun to do some improv quilting every once in a while, I agree!

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  23. I absolutely love this quilt! I ttired to make one without cutting much and it didn't turn out like this! I want to try this!! It's fantastic!

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  24. WOW THIS IS SO BEAUTIFUL!! Tutorial?? :0)

    Jessica @ www.prettyprovidence.com

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  25. I can understand why this makes you smile! Bright and cheerful and playful!

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  26. How fun is that?!! What a joy ride!

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  27. Wow! That's amazing that an entire quilt could be made from scraps...and still look gorgeous. Makes me want to quilt! Thanks so much for sharing at Etcetorize this week~

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  28. Popping over from Quilt Story...LOVE the quilt! And I'm with you on the solids--I have a big stash, but very few solids. I keep finding excuses to buy some. :)

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  29. Just found your blog and that quilt is adorable!! Hoping to make one someday :)

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  30. Fabulous quilt! great post! Who knew that the simple act of making a quilt could teach us so many lessons!

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  31. Love the energy of this quilt!

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  32. I love the bright, bold colours and the fact that it's made from scraps... awesome!!!

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