Feeling quilty

I've had this niggling quilty feeling for the last few weeks.  I keep thinking about the quilt I accidentally started (when I was making a patchwork panel for a small handbag) a few months ago.

 

I woke up on Sunday and started stitching again. I needed a day to let my brain freewheel and unwind, and this seemed like the perfect meditation.

 

Every fabric is designed by an Australian, and I'm lucky enough to call some of those talented designers my friends. These were scraps that were too precious to throw out.

 

I had visions of floating these strips in broad bands of a solid colour, but couldn't decide which colour.  After bit of experimentation, I thought a mix of red, black and grey would be interesting...

 

I started cutting up fabric and began the well-practised art (read: habit) of flying by the seat of my pants.  There was no clear plan.... just the enticing notion of a finished quilt and a strong sense of very little time in which to make it.

 

 

After I cut up all the red fabric I had, I decided that there should have been more thought put into proportions and layout, with a few much wider bands.  I didn't have enough fabric to re-cut. 

 

In came a 3-D shadow effect with grey and black.... which appears to be overwhelming the subtlety of the pieced prints.... I'm not sure about it... but it's sewn together and there's no more red and.... well... let's just see what happens, shall we...?

 

My approach to quilting appears to be of the improvised "from little things, big things grow" variety, which - as an amateur - could lead me into all sorts of unforseen  trouble.

 

My girl, on the other hand, is a planner.  She dreams big.

 

She talked about "an idea for a quilt" for a week before she suggested starting it at a time that wasn't two minutes before bed, in the middle of dinner or just as we were simultaneously brushing teeth and running out the door to get to school on time. 

 

 

  We found an appropriate moment and she started vliesofixing and sketching out shapes for applique.

 

 

There were flower petals cut and flower petals fused, and then the addition of a caterpillar... and then the retro-fitting of some caterpillar-bites out of a flower petal....

 

 ...and then the narrative of the caterpillar story was 'adjusted' to fit in with the designer's waning enthusiasm for flower-petal cutting and fusing.

 

"The caterpillar ate the rest of the petals."

 

It was quilted, "bound" and declared finished.  

 

I think that maybe, some time in the future, she'll be employing me.