New Quilting Project

After making one smallish and overly rectangular log cabin quilt last year, I thought I had satiated my curiosity about the quilting tradition. I finished this first quilt around February of 2013, and up until a month or so ago I had little interest in making another one. The first one just ended up being more labor intensive than I had expected, I guess, and I've been struggling with the time commitment that goes along with quilting. I recently read a blog where a woman wrote that she looks at a day without quilting or some other kind of productive craft as a day wasted. She even said something like, "Although I managed to read a fun book today, it felt like wasted time because I wasn't creating something tangible and lasting." I'm paraphrasing, of course, and I wish I could remember where I came across this sentiment because it was a very interesting perspective for me, since I hold just about the opposite view. This September marked the beginning of my tenth year straight of what is swiftly becoming "career studenthood," and I can't stop myself from feeling like time spent quilting or crafting is time that is being stolen from potential "reading" time. I've spent some time thinking about the possible intellectual benefits of quilting and other repetitive arts. I'm sure it does make us mentally sharper on many levels, and I like to think about it in relation to the time I used to spend practicing musical instruments, which was also rather repetitive and mechanical. I have no doubts about the intellectual benefits of practicing music, so why not quilting?!

However, it has taken me some effort to convince myself that repetitive, creative activity is actually probably very good for us as humans, and not a waste of time. And, in reality, if I weren't learning how to quilt, I would most likely not spend any more time reading or writing than I normally do on a daily basis. If I'm being honest with myself, I would almost certainly just end up watching more useless television! So, about a month ago I decided to start my second quilt! The other contributing factor to this sudden return to the textile arts was something my father said to me when my parents visited me in California, and they finally saw the first quilt I made last year. They looked at my smallish, overly rectangular quilt in wonder. They didn't know I had it in me! And then my dad said something he will live to regret.

He said, "I forbid you to make another quilt until you finish your dissertation."

Forbid?! Ha! Little did he know that those words would be the impetus I needed to begin a new project! I have always been a defiant daughter (not really, I mean, quilting is my one act of rebellion.).

Soon enough, my bedroom table was transformed into this again:

This time around, instead of choosing the fabrics myself at Joann (the only fabric store I have access to easily here), I decided to see what a "quilt kit" experience would be like. I discovered the online store Connecting Threads and then looked up some reviews of their fabric. I really don't know much about fabric, except that really low quality fabrics will get you into trouble, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on a quilt only to see it fall apart due to cheap fabric. The reviews of Connecting Threads seemed pretty positive and their kits, unlike those of some other sites, were not prohibitively expensive. So I finally settled on one called "Starry Splendor." So far the kit experience has been good. I don't think I would have ended up with such varied colors if I had bought the fabrics myself, and it has been nice to follow a pattern where all the colors have been laid out. I know this takes a lot of the creative and design element out of quilting (which is what some quilters live for, I know), but as a beginner quilter who finds too many choices overwhelming, I have appreciated the availability of the kits.

The quilt kit came with the required amount of fabric in the colors and prints that were represented in the advertised pattern. I still had to measure and cut out all of the patches (which is a work in progress; I have decided to cut the patches out for each block as I make them. I originally intended to cut all the patches at once, but this would have taken days and been pretty demoralizing. I think it's better to divide up tasks so that you can get sewing in as well as cutting in any given quilting session). Overall, I am pleased with the kit that I received and the different prints that were included. Some of the fabrics are prettier than others, but I love how multi-colored this quilt is going to be when it's finished, and as a beginner quilter with no fabric collection to speak of, this was really going to be the only way to get this amount of color and print variety.

The Starry Splendor quilt is made of small inner stars framed by larger outer stars. The small stars look like this:

And the big stars look like this!

As you can see I have made eight finished blocks already, and there are only twelve total. Overall, I am shocked by how much more smoothly this quilt is going than the first one. Even though these stars are far from perfect (I struggle to make the points right and exact and to get all the stars the same size, and to have enough room around the edges for adding border strips. Sigh, so many variables.), I am excited that I have come this far in my quilting skills already. I am also making a concerted effort to be more patient with this quilt and move at a leisurely pace, since last time I think I hurried myself too much, which ultimately affected the quilt, of course.

And, no, I did not make that quilt that is underneath the blocks (oh, that? That's nothing. Just a double-wedding ring quilt I whipped up a few weeks ago. NOT.). That is an impulse buy I made on Etsy a few months ago because I wanted a double wedding ring quilt. It's beautiful! I can only hope that some day I will have the skill and the patience to make one myself.