Monday, March 1, 2010

Painfully ugly quilting

Ok... I finished up the Valorie Wells quilt. I thought quilting would help improve my feelings for it... but no, it actually made me even less fond of it.


I tried to do concentric squares around the boxes... but MAN it was a pain in the butt. My least favorite part of quilting is trying to shove half the blanket through the neck of the sewing machine while quilting it.... this one was brutal, every time I had to change directions the better part of the quilt had to get rolled up to go through the machine. The results are disappointing for the amount of work that went into it. It clearly needs more quilting - just to hold it all together, but there's no way I'm doing more squares.

I'm also not thrilled with the embroidery... again, it needs more. I mean... it's a nice touch, I don't think this part is ugly... but it didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped.


I'm going to treat this quilt as a learning experience. For me at least I need to have a quilt in mind before buying the fabric. As much as I love some of the fabrics, they never really told me what they wanted to be. Or maybe they were trying to tell me something and I just couldn't hear it. It's also possible that I just needed to let them all sit and stew a lot longer. But I'm an impatient quilter. I want the finished quilt NOW. The other thing I've learned is that long straight lines are much easier to quilt than trying to do smaller, unconnected shapes.

I'm glad it's done. It's a good size, it's nice and warm. It'll do just fine. I'm eager to start making myself quilts I really love though.

6 comments:

Bezzie said...

I dunno! I've seen uglier!! And that rolling and crap is why I'm glad I don't machine quilt. That would drive me bonkers!

Trillian42 said...

I think it's beautiful! It's bright and sunny and fun.

Yeah, the shoving stuff through the machine thing is why I've only actually ever managed a couple of small baby quilts. :D

IamSusie said...

I like it too! I love quilts with large scale funky prints. When I quilt on my own machine, I always plan long straight lines, usually in a grid or as diagonals.

jovaliquilts said...

I like it, maybe with time you will, too? Or find someone who does to gift it to?
As for quilting squares around squares, I had the same problem so I started going down the rows, starting and stopping for each square (so that each side had a separate quilt line, but they met at the corners so it looked continuous) so I wouldn't have to keep turning it in the machine. There were more ends to deal with, but the machine part was so much easier.

Sarah Nopp said...

Are there no places nearby that rent out long arm machines? That is my big excuse for not getting things completed... but there is a place that rents them by the hour and another that rents by the day.

Rebel said...

Bezzie - you're right, I have seen uglier too.

Trillian - it is bright and fun... and I guess that's better than dark and dismal. =P

Susie - long straight lines are my new plan.

Jovial - I thought of that, starting and stopping along the way, I just didn't know if that would actually work. I might try it if I get inspired to do more quilting on it.

Sarah - I'd have to look into that, it never occurred to me that I could rent a machine.