May 27, 2009

Something Old And Something New


Have you ever made a quilt that you just hate. Well I made this quilt probably 18 years ago. I hand quilted it and named it "Amish Sunrise". It used to have a big yellow sun in the middle of it. I do not know what I was thinking. Yet all the work made me angry to just toss it. So several years ago I decided to fuse some Kaffe Fassett fabric in the middle to at least cover the sunrise up. I machine quilted that and thought it was still ugly. So it got folded up and put back in my cupboard. The next time I dragged it out I still did not like it, but now what do I have to lose. So I added the stems and the leaves and machine quilted them, fused on a binding and folded it up and put it in my cupboard where it still resides.


Still trying to organize my studio and I revisited this quilt. This quilt is one I made in the 1980's?
I took a class in which you had to bring a bag of scraps and then make them into something.
I decided to make arrows all pointing in one direction except one.


I flipped that one in the opposite direction and also used the reverse side of the fabric in the block. I titled this quilt "Wrong Way". It was also the very first quilt I machine quilted! There are little signs in the border where I quilting the words wrong way on each and every one of them!
I think I will always keep this just because of that.


Just to prove I have not been totally idle these last few days, here is Mulberry Bush being quilted and quilted.

I am making progress and I am happy with it so far. But it is tedious and very time consuming.

5 comments:

Libby Fife said...

What do you do with those quilts that you end up not liking? I have an Amish twin size quilt that I have come to despise! It is entirely hand quilted-in for a penny, in for a pound!

Thanks for the pics. I enjoyed the ones of your house too-it looks very friendly and cosy there:)

Beena said...

Love the Mulberry Bush quilt, and the other quilts, too. Must be someone who will love that quilt that first quilt you posted, that you say you hate.

I've made a few that I liked, but grew to hate because I "overworked" the art work in them to the point of feeling like they were ruined because of it. I did this one that was wonderful, but couldn't leave it alone. (laughing) It had this girl with wild hair on a background of pieced circles in gorgeous fabrics. And I messed up her eyes because I just couldn't leave it alone. Thought I could make it better. Boy, was I wrong and wished I'd just left it alone. This is after it was quilted that I tried tweaking it. And back then, I was still paying someone else to quilt my quilts. I cringe thinking about it. Now, if I'm not totally happy with some art work, it won't get appliqued onto the background. Or if I'm not happy with the background, then I won't waste art work on it. Even if everyone else thinks it's fine, if it bugs me when I'm working on it, I know I won't be any happier down the road!

It's a process, I guess (sigh).

Nellie's Needles said...

I keep going back to the first quilt ... the beautiful Amish one with the wild and wonderful flowers. I think your additions are wonderful and they make it look more like something you would make. What size is it?

Well, now, the mulberry one is something altogether different. What a long way you've come from "Wrong Way".

Eva said...

I think you made a great thing out of the first quilt. So bold! Love it now.

Barbara Strobel Lardon said...

So the question seems to be answered......you can rework a quilt!

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