Tuesday 15 June 2010

Looking Back...

Yesterday evening I did my quilt presentation. It went very well, none of the ladies were quilters so there were only a few questions, they asked what I put inside the quilts, he he he..... but there were plenty of 'oooohs and ahhhhhs' which I was quite chuffed about.
I'd like to show you this quilt, it makes me smile to look at it, proudly, of course. It s a very early project, 1999 though not 1990. An American lady named Robin, took me under her wing to show me how to make a kaleidoscope quilt, not the Stack 'n' Whack way, the holey fabric way!
I did do a good job of getting the seams lined up, says I proudly, blowing my own trumpet!! See how much effort I put into the mitred borders? That bit was done all by my very own self, I quilted it with fishing twine, he he he, a cheap version of invisible thread that you can buy in Brazil, not at all fine like you can buy here. Anyway, I had been advised to machine quilt with this thread to make the stitches invisible. Being rather 'green' (which could be mistaken for 'thick!) I hand quilted with the fishing twine too, he he he... I Know!!! you think I am nuts eh! I didn't know I was goofing, did I. If you look closely you will see exactly how much hand quilting I did too... loads, mainly in the borders. When I was all done quilting, I cut out the elephants and hand appliqued them on and quilted round them, with fishing twine! raw edge applique with no 'sticky stuff'... because I didn't know, I didn't care either, ha ha ha
OK, now look at these corners... because I mitred them without knowing the rules, I hadn't enough fabric, but I patched up and continued. You can see I chose my patches quite carefully to disguise them, genius!!! Oh and I didn't know how to mitre my binding either, ha ha ha , aren't they just sweet... again, I don't care, done is better than perfect! I was destined to be a quilting addict from day one eh....Even though I didn't know how to do stuff "properly", it didn't stop me trying! I hope these pictures make you smile too, we were all beginners though weren't we, we should remember that.

1 comment:

Crafts @ Home said...

I think 'done is better than perfect' is a wonderful motto, I think like that, you can move forward and hope to improve on the next one. I think your 1st quilt is jolly good anyway.