Finally, what did I manage? Well, I completed one flimsy, to be Ryder’s quilt, that gave me fits every step of the way. In fact, I’m pretty sure my friends were tired of my whining. The story behind this quilt is a long one: as you may know, I spoiled our oldest granddaughter, to say the least. She and I were shopping one day, and she discovered some animal-print fabric and HAD to have it for a quilt. I relented, of course, A few weeks later, the quilt completely cut out and some of the blocks sewn together, I was sick of it. It was horribly busy and over-the-top. Dusti and I talked, and she informed me she’d changed her mind. Animal prints weren’t her favorite, after all. I don’t remember if I was more upset at the lost cost or happy to stick it all in a bag and forget about it.
Fast-forward to a few weeks ago, and I needed to make quilts for the three small grandies. I found the dinosaur panel and made Emile’s quilt. On the same day, I found another panel of safari animals. I debated over this panel for quite some time and finally remembered the animal prints in the bag. As luck would have it, the prints worked well with the panel. So, I packed it all up and determined to work on Ryder’s safari quilt at retreat. It’s a good thing. Today I can say there is no way I would finish it here at home. It was brutal. Really. Truly. Brutal. However ugly, it’s sewn, and Ryder will love it.
Since I finished that quilt, I had a day to work on Amelia’s quilt. I had a couple of charm packs but no ideas. A few minutes of looking at how other quilters have used charm packs, and I knew what to do. But I didn’t have any yardage. Luckily, my friend Mary Smith, who owns Quilt Genius, an online fabric shop, was at the retreat and had one piece of fabric up for grabs. I grabbed.
Who would have thought that this red would be the perfect “wow” that the quilt wanted? I have about half of the blocks sewn, so I can play to my heart’s content arranging and rearranging these pretty pieces. Of course, two charm packs are not going to be enough, but I have already started adding in other fabrics and will pull some from my stash. At this point, anything will work, and I plan to take advantage of that.
