I'm Finished!

   Since I have had so many computer problems this week, I decided to go offline for a while.  What a great decision, because I finished the World's Ugliest Quilt today.
    I have been remaking this quilt for a friend since last June.  Turns out the quilt also remade me.  Here it is on day one. (Lesson 1: There is value in everything, not just the pretty things.)

     Note the lovely turquoise with baby clothes across the middle, the orange at the top and the teal on the bottom.  What was not clear from the photo is that every patch was a different size, the yarn that tied the quilt made permanent holes in the fabric and the quilt was so heavy it deformed all of the fabrics.
    My first step was to take it apart.  The seam ripper and I became best friends.  (Lesson 2:  Break it all down into small pieces to see the root of the problem.) Here is the stack of fabric that once was the world's ugliest quilt.

    Hard to believe that a larger than queen sized quilt could be reduced to that small stack.  The next step was sorting and reinforcing.  The fabrics were so old that they needed some help to stand up to being used again and some were beyond hope. (Lesson 3: First reinforce the positive.)  After re-cutting to size, I began to get a feel for what would look good together.  It was not like my normal quilt where I could just discard what would not fit.  These were pieces of my friend's life.

   These are the first eight 9-patch blocks that I made.  Little did I know that this was the easy part, the ones that just looked right.  The second eight had the purple woolen plaid and the green velvet and, did I mention, all the orange t-shirts. I put them away for a whole month before I could figure out what to do.  (Lesson 4:  Space really does give perspective on a problem.)  Turns out those odd ones are some of my favorite blocks.  Here are a few.

     Note, fabrics from every decade, 70's to 2010's.  
     Then we got to the arranging of the blocks.  Yes, we.  I couldn't do it alone.  Almost every member of my family, brother, sister, but most of all husband and sons, have their fingerprints all over the arrangement. It  moved around the house to any area that would accommodate it.  How to get the energy to flow through this very different quilt?  Here it is in final form on the living room floor.

   Isn't it funny how well it goes with our couch?  Once I had it laid out like this I realized that a lot of my problems over the year had been because these are not my colors.  They work well for both my husband and one of our sons.  This was why they could be so helpful.  (Lesson 5: Consult an expert.)
   When I got here, I thought my problems were finished.  I was home free. I have finished many quilts, this should be easy. Not.
   It is the heaviest thing I have ever worked on and the fabrics did not feed through the machine like I expected.  I thought that June 1st would be my finish date, and here it is July. (Lesson 6:  (Seriously, I'm not done yet, lesson 6?) Don't count your chickens before they are hatched.)   The good news is, with perseverance, it is finished.

  Now I just wish I knew how to take a better picture... (see lesson 5)  Here are a few last pictures.  I can't seem to get them in a line (see lesson 5, again).  I leave you with great jubilation, I finished!

Singing the Perfectionist Blues: Lessons in Humility and Good Enough

                There it sits.  Staring at me. The world’s ugliest quilt.  My friends prized race t-shirts and childhood clothes turned into garbage.  Poorly cut and sewn, with added accents of day-glo turquoise and orange.  And I said I would fix it!

                After two months of planning, deconstruction and re-cutting, I began to rebuild.  And discover more problems.  No amount of interfacing makes polyester double-knit easy to sew.  No amount of prayer can put fabric back on the poorly cut t-shirts.  No amount of rearranging is going to change the color palette.  So what is a perfectionist to do?

                Get Back to Basics- Return to the original goal.  The quilt’s owner wants something warm to snuggle under with good memories, not an award winner.  I need to see the fabrics through her eyes and love them to life.

                Accept Good Enough- These fabrics will always be 79’s vintage, often laundered.  I’m not going to get the perfect corners.  Seams will not meet, no matter how well pinned.  And this is perfect.  I have never loved a perfect house, it feels too cold.  This will be a warm, comforting quilt.

                Breathe- When it doesn’t look right, I resolve to breathe.  Nothing that happens here is disastrous.  I can rip apart and re-sew, or grow to love what it looks like.

                Each Saturday I come to the machine, just like coming to the mat in yoga.  I bring the perfectionist mind that I have honed for so many years.  I come to be humbled and to learn that “good enough” often is truly good enough.

Here they are, the squares waiting to teach me more....