Well, much to my disappointment, I didn't have the right color threads with me ( I needed a variety of blues and greys) to complete the top because some of the blocks required top stitching of the curved pieces to form the blocks and rows. Strike one! I did manage to get the quilt top completely cut out and I spent an extraordinary amount of time carefully measuring and cutting the pieces according to the instructions. Once I was ready to sit down and sew, I read the instructions several times to understand what I was about to undertake. They were written very well and fairly easy to follow. I realized after the first run through, that I was going to need a design wall to hang the quilt in progress upon in order to prevent piecing mistakes. Strike two!
At this point, I put the kit away and pulled out my backup project for which I was grateful to have packed. These were little heart shaped blocks done via the foundation piecing method. All the strips were already cut, I only had to sit and sew. I managed to get 4 of them done over the weekend. No small feat, as each block contains 22 pieces each. Sew and flip, sew and flip, sew and flip.
I also made several basket wraps and completed a special new binding technique on a wall hanging that I had quilted the weekend before this one. I was teaching the rest of the gang how to do the new binding technique and it turned out really well.
So this leads me to my question of the week: Do you prefer to purchase quilt kits or to make your own fabric choices? How many of you purchase quilt kits either in a store or online because you fell in love with the sample in the shop on on the website? I counted mentally in my head how many quilt kits I have purchased in my 35 years of quilt making. Five! I think that tells you that I am not one to purchase kits very often because I have made hundreds of quilts. The last two of those were tumbler kits that I purchased at the same shop. The first one was an Halloween Themed Pumpkin Quilt kit, which essentially had the pattern and the fabrics for the pumpkins included. I made it 20 years ago and I still love it and hang it up every October. The next kit was a foundation pieced pictorial kit of a large magnolia bloom. I finished it up at least 15 years ago and it hangs in my studio to this day. And then there is this Glacier Quilt that I purchased as a remembrance of our Alaskan Cruise in 2010 and tried to work on last weekend. I will finish it soon, I hope, at home where I have unlimited thread choices for the top stitching and a large design wall that does not have to shared with 6 other quilters. And I do recall having seen that quilt several times since I purchased the quilt at shows, and its beautiful when its constructed well and quilted properly!
Several of my friends enjoy buying and making kits. Most of the quilts they finish start as kits. And I love how proud they are when they finish them. I think that quilt kits are a great way to purchase what you need to make a quilt and not have to make hard fabric choices. They are the perfect choice for quilters that struggle with color and composition. And there are so many quilt kits available today, it amazes me what the shops have to offer every time I visit them. Another quilting buddy of mine, will make the extra effort to hunt down just the right fabric to produce a quilt they saw somewhere and are inspired to base their next project on. She doesn't buy kits. She sometimes doesn't buy patterns. She has the unique ability to see something and draw it out and make it from scratch herself. I've been shopping with her when she needed that perfect piece of fabric to complete the quilt. Sometimes we just have to dip into each others stash to get it, especially if the quilt design has a vintage flair to it. She is very good about ensuring that she credits the original quilt and quilt maker as the source of her design inspiration with a cool label on the back of her quilt.
What I don't like about quilt kits, is that the fabric choices were made by someone else and while one can swap out fabrics in a kit for other to make it unique, chances are that same quilt lives somewhere else and yours is just like it. I very much enjoy shopping for the fabrics to make a quilt, planning each choice as I go. I feel that making quilts from scratch, is my preferred way to do this. That's not saying that baking a cake from a cake mix doesn't produce spectacular results, it often does. But I like working from scratch and figuring it out as I go. And I know I don't have to worry that someone will say, "Oh, I saw that quilt at 'sew and sew' recently." I love finding patterns and then making them in different colors and fabrics than the sample. Its more challenging to me to do this then to duplicate another person's work. I'm sure its because I hope I can envision what the end result will be, but I also know that I can be quite surprised with the finished quilt which ends up looking nothing like the inspiration piece. If I really like a quilt design, I have been known to make more than one (usually two of the same pattern is my limit). One to keep as my own and one to give away as a gift.
I always take many photos of my finished quilts so there is a record of the ones I have made over the years.
