Thank you so much for all the pineapple love, your timing was perfect, I was needing a little quilting love this week.
So for the last couple of months, when I wasn't working on tearing my house apart or putting my house back together, I've been working with this Autumn Woods fabric by Kate & Birdie for Moda.
I loved the fabric group the first time I saw it, but it was that tree line border fabric that really called to me. I immediately thought some geese flying between the trees was just the way to go. I also thought the geese should be flying in some sort of pattern but I wanted it to have a random feel to it too. So I started making geese, and some more geese and even more geese, until I had a basketful of geese. Flying geese are the best block to work on when you have limited space and limited time. Some days I would maybe only finish 5 geese, but at least I accomplished one thing, adding more geese to that basket. Once my design wall was up I could hardly wait to see those geese randomly flying between those rows of trees. Which led to this.
And while I do have to admit that this is pretty much how I pictured my project to look, it looks way better in my head. I'm not sure I can even put my finger on what's wrong with this quilt top, I just know it doesn't look good. I still love that tree border but the geese just don't look right with it. I'm not sure if they need to be bigger or smaller. And even if they were a different size I'm not sure that background fabric is the way to go.
After the first couple of rows I had a feeling it wasn't working out quite right, but I've had that feeling while in the assembly stage of other quilts, and have usually been happy when they were done, so I kept making those geese blocks. I even made a couple of blocks for that last row, 5 more blocks to piece and it would be done, close, so very close.
But it just doesn't work for me. I tried putting the geese on point, changing up the border, but nothing really came together. So for now my Autumn Woods project is packed up in a project box. I'll give it some more thought. At first I was disappointed that I hadn't been able to create the most clever pattern to go with that border fabric, and disappointed that I had spent so much time making geese, who enjoys the feeling of failure. But I did enjoy working with that fabric, and I enjoyed making those geese, they were the only relaxing part of some of my days. So if all I get out of this project is a basketful of geese, they at least kept me from pulling out my hair, yelling at a contractor, or crying as I tried to find a pair of decent shoes and somewhat presentable outfit in my garage full of boxes and clothes racks. Quilting is my hobby, my passion, my release, it's not my job. I don't have to finish this project.
The good news, I already have that loving feeling back, and all it took was some fall Sandy Gervais fabric and Camille's Red Letter Day pattern. My sister-in-law has been strongly hinting about wanting a king size quilt for their bed. I'm out of the king size bed quilt business, I have even said so on this blog, but I'm making one last exception. The original pattern calls for 9 blocks, but I'm adding an extra block and extra row for a nice size quilt using 16 blocks.
I only need 15 more of these blocks, a border fabric, and I'll have a quilt. And when I sent the picture of this block to my sister-in-law she was thrilled. That's the best thing about having a family of non quilters, the simplest of blocks looks like a show quilt to them. It feels great to be back on solid ground.
Oh, and one last thing, I'm already working on the next great pattern, and it looking pretty good, in my head, lol!! Sometimes it really is about the journey and not the destination.
Thanks for stopping by,
So for the last couple of months, when I wasn't working on tearing my house apart or putting my house back together, I've been working with this Autumn Woods fabric by Kate & Birdie for Moda.
I loved the fabric group the first time I saw it, but it was that tree line border fabric that really called to me. I immediately thought some geese flying between the trees was just the way to go. I also thought the geese should be flying in some sort of pattern but I wanted it to have a random feel to it too. So I started making geese, and some more geese and even more geese, until I had a basketful of geese. Flying geese are the best block to work on when you have limited space and limited time. Some days I would maybe only finish 5 geese, but at least I accomplished one thing, adding more geese to that basket. Once my design wall was up I could hardly wait to see those geese randomly flying between those rows of trees. Which led to this.
And while I do have to admit that this is pretty much how I pictured my project to look, it looks way better in my head. I'm not sure I can even put my finger on what's wrong with this quilt top, I just know it doesn't look good. I still love that tree border but the geese just don't look right with it. I'm not sure if they need to be bigger or smaller. And even if they were a different size I'm not sure that background fabric is the way to go.
After the first couple of rows I had a feeling it wasn't working out quite right, but I've had that feeling while in the assembly stage of other quilts, and have usually been happy when they were done, so I kept making those geese blocks. I even made a couple of blocks for that last row, 5 more blocks to piece and it would be done, close, so very close.
But it just doesn't work for me. I tried putting the geese on point, changing up the border, but nothing really came together. So for now my Autumn Woods project is packed up in a project box. I'll give it some more thought. At first I was disappointed that I hadn't been able to create the most clever pattern to go with that border fabric, and disappointed that I had spent so much time making geese, who enjoys the feeling of failure. But I did enjoy working with that fabric, and I enjoyed making those geese, they were the only relaxing part of some of my days. So if all I get out of this project is a basketful of geese, they at least kept me from pulling out my hair, yelling at a contractor, or crying as I tried to find a pair of decent shoes and somewhat presentable outfit in my garage full of boxes and clothes racks. Quilting is my hobby, my passion, my release, it's not my job. I don't have to finish this project.
The good news, I already have that loving feeling back, and all it took was some fall Sandy Gervais fabric and Camille's Red Letter Day pattern. My sister-in-law has been strongly hinting about wanting a king size quilt for their bed. I'm out of the king size bed quilt business, I have even said so on this blog, but I'm making one last exception. The original pattern calls for 9 blocks, but I'm adding an extra block and extra row for a nice size quilt using 16 blocks.
I only need 15 more of these blocks, a border fabric, and I'll have a quilt. And when I sent the picture of this block to my sister-in-law she was thrilled. That's the best thing about having a family of non quilters, the simplest of blocks looks like a show quilt to them. It feels great to be back on solid ground.
Oh, and one last thing, I'm already working on the next great pattern, and it looking pretty good, in my head, lol!! Sometimes it really is about the journey and not the destination.
Thanks for stopping by,
