Value in Repetition

Hello, lovelies!

I figured I'd reveal my Super Secret Sewing Project once it arrived at its destination, and today I heard that the package made it safely, so: Here it is! (Click for bigger!)


These are comfort pillows for a dear friend who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. She's headed in for surgery on Monday, and I hope she finds these useful and cheering! (The bone-shaped pillow is from this pattern on Connecting Threads, the bird is from this pattern by Pillow and Maxfield. The rectangular one was half-mistake, half-late-night-crazed-inspiration, and I really like the baffling baffled box pillow I ended up with. *g*)

I also attended a Rock River Modern Quilt Guild meeting this week, and had a lovely time chatting with everyone! Jeanne of Grey Cat Quilts talked about being in a 'sampler quilt mood,' as opposed to making the very same block over and over, and it got me to thinking.

Sampler quilts can be a lot of fun--I'm in the middle of my first two, right now, and it's nifty doing so many different blocks! There also seem to be lots of sampler quilt-a-longs going on in blogland right now, which is also great.

But.

I think there's a lot of value in doing the very same block over and over, too, especially for beginning quilters. (I think Jeanne's a long way from a beginner, let me be clear!)

For me, I don't think my skills particularly improve in one block, but across many--I would be far less confident with my kaleidoscope quilt if I hadn't had sixty-seven blocks of pinwheel practice with my Tweetygigs quilt. I'm finding my kaleidoscope blocks are getting better, too, and I'm only a third of the way through putting them together.

So I urge you, if you're a beginning-to-intermediate quilter, not to dismiss single-block quilts. Sometimes repetition really is the best way to learn!



(Linked with Fabric Tuesday, check out all the goodies there, too!)

Flashback: Fireworks Quilt

Today I'd like to share, for Fabric Tuesday, a little bit of a blast from the past: My Fireworks quilt (click for bigger).



This is a generously-sized lap quilt, begun at a stack-n-whack class and finished in fall 2004. It goes with absolutely nothing in our decor (or probably anybody else's), but I love the way the pinwheels turned out.

I have fond memories of creating the pinwheel blocks in our tiny apartment kitchen, in the evening time after a day spent working on my dissertation. Since I hadn't peeked at the triangle stacks after I'd whacked them, I didn't know how each block would turn out, and it was always exciting to see! I'd take them in to the Mr to show him, too. :)



To get the layout I liked, I took photos of each block, rotated and cropped each photo so it was 'on point', and then I made several test arrangements on the computer.

The quilting was done by a local long-arm quilter, using a computer-driven machine and a stars-n-loops pattern. I kind of wish she'd used rainbow thread instead of red-white-blue, but I still like it.



We've used this quilt for all kinds of things--like going under the 6-month-old so she could play without spitting up on the carpet--and now it lives in my sewing room as a spare blanket for the guest bed.

What I really want to remember from my experience with this quilt is that when I first started quilting, I was confident in my ability to mix colors and fabrics, to envision what a quilt would look like and to trust my instincts. I knew this fabric would make an awesome stack-n-whack quilt, and I surprised many of the other, older ladies in my class by picking it. I don't ever want to forget that confidence, that trust in my eye and my instincts--there are so many inspiring quilters out there, but there can be one in here, too, if I listen to her.

Please head on over to Fabric Tuesday and check out the other wonderful projects!