Maybe I CAN Be a Quilter

This past summer, we—along with eleven other designers—participated in a Mystery Stitch-Along. Our block was the Harvest Basket, which you can read about by clicking here. Kara and I (Teri) each stitched the block, as one was destined to be stitched into the Woolen Oak Mystery Quilt, and we wanted to keep one. I decided to create a small wall hanging with the one I made.

I thought I would just do a small border of one-inch squares, pulling colors from the basket block. Color is my favorite part of the process, so this took me an afternoon of playing with fabrics to be sure I had a balance of colors and value. I always look at my pictures in black and white to be sure that I have light, medium, and dark colors. Once I had stitched the first border, I realized that more than one row of these colorful blocks would distract from the basket, so I planned to pull the neutral into a small outer border.

 

I wanted to appliqué the word Thankful on the top border, so I played around with my fonts to get the right look and size. I chose Snell Roundhouse, which I bolded and sized at 130 points, and added a six-point outline. I printed and glued it to freezer paper, carefully cut it out, ironed it onto my wool, and cut again. It was tedious scissor-work, but worth it. 

I appliquéd the word and embroidered around it using an outline stitch, and then I added the oak leaves and acorns from the block pattern. 

The finished top

Now, the challenge I faced was to quilt it. Years ago, I tried to become a machine quilter, but never felt comfortable with anything but stitching in the ditch, or straight lines. I could never achieve the "perfection" I craved with free-motion quilting, and there wasn't enough wine to relax me into enjoying the process. And the more I fell in love with hand-stitching, the less time I wanted to spend on my machine.

For a long time, I was content to consider myself a top-maker—and as I began to appliqué, even a block-maker—being perfectly happy to let someone more talented in quilting be the quilter. But I have had the desire to make the attempt to master this skill, and have completed a few small projects using big-stitch quilting. This was my first real foray into standard hand-quilting. It is a small project, and I was ready to try and allow myself some imperfections. (In my mind, that is the key!)

I chose to use a hoopless method. As most of my quilting design was planned around outlining motifs and straight lines, I felt that I had a good opportunity to become more comfortable with the skill. My stitches are not tiny, but they are fairly consistent. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I really enjoyed the process. It was comforting and relaxing to just sit and stitch.  

Using a finger cot helped to pull the needle through, but the ones that I had were wearing out, so I cut the finger off of a kitchen glove, which alleviated some of the hand discomfort of gripping the needle. It was a cheap and easy solution, and it didn't tear.

The quilting from the back

I chose simple as far as a quilting pattern; I outlined the appliquéd motifs, and echoed the acorn in the background. Within the acorn, I quilted vertical lines to mimic the lines on an acorn, and cross-hatched the cap. My stitches improved as I quilted, and the outer border stitches are consistently smaller and a bit more uniform. It isn't perfect, but I am satisfied that my skills improved, and I'm happy enough with it to hang it on my wall.

When I was choosing my border fabrics, I was seeking a perfect print that incorporated several of the colors to use as my binding. The one piece I found that worked was part of a jelly roll; however, it was one of the few that only had one strip, so I wouldn't have enough. I was pretty much settled on using brown, to pull the color from the basket (and we have a propensity to bind and border a lot of our quilts with brown.) But the other day, I was looking at this quilt hanging on the wall, and I recognized that the colors in the fabric in this quilt would match perfectly. Some people have a photographic memory, but sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing as a "colorgraphic" memory. I instantly knew it would be a perfect match. I just hoped I had enough left in my stash. 

 

To read more about this quilt, read our post entitled Turning to Him.

I was happy with the color match when I pulled the piece from my closet, and I had plenty to bind my small wall hanging.

The quilting makes the design come to life!

It takes a pair of really sharp scissors and good cutting skills,
but I love the way the lettering turned out on the top border.

I had successfully convinced myself that I could never be a quilter, that my skills could never be adequate and I would ruin my appliqué work if I attempted to quilt it myself. Thankfully, I ventured into the quilting arena, allowing myself to be imperfect and to do my best. I know where I could have improved and where I was less than perfect, but perfection isn't everything. I learned that I can improve, and I actually really enjoyed the process. And I don't feel as though I ruined my quilt top. I think sometimes I am my own worst enemy. Maybe I CAN be a quilter, and not just a topmaker! 

P.S. We do still have patterns and kits available for the Harvest Basket center block on our website: needleseyestories.com/shop.