Bernie over at Needle and Foot sent me an email about an event she was hosting. It is all about sharing your silliest quilting blunders. Doesn't that sound fun?!
Now I admit, I don't make mistakes. (HA!) I like to think of my imperfections as simply design elements or variations. I even share in my presentations to other quilters that doing something once is a mistake but doing it more than once makes it a design choice!
As you can see, I even have a metal sign right where I meet with my quilting clients that expresses this thought.
But this event of Bernie's did bring to mind a big blunder I made because I fell in love with a color.
And love makes you blind....
When a quilter travels and teaches at various venues and guilds, it really helps to have multiple samples that you can use to send off. So I decided to make another sample of my Spin! quilt pattern.
At the time, I was crushing hard on a soft blue green color. I went to the fabric store and stacked up my bolts. Even then I kept questioning if I had enough contrast. But I loved the color...
As I sewed the blocks, I questioned my color choice. But I loved the color...
Even when I custom quilted it, I wondered if it was too light. Yeah, you get it.
I loved the color.
Here it is among my other Spin! samples. I still love the color but I have never been able to use this quilt as a sample. It doesn't travel in my trunk shows, it isn't used in my classes and it doesn't get sent to guilds for class sign-ups. Sadly, it is just stored in a tub.
I still love the color but I am now much more careful in picking the right quilt design for the colors I want to work with.
But now, thanks to this event, this quilt now has a function!
It is an example of what not to do just because you love a color :)
If you want to read more about various blunders quilters have made, you can head over to Bernie's blog and find them all in the comments field. I am sure there will be lots of links to blogs sharing their stories.
Or at least, I hope I am not the only one!
(BTW - If you like my Spin! quilt, you can buy the pattern on Etsy here or from my pattern store.)
Thanks so much!
Linking Up:
19 comments:
I don't think the blue-green quilt is a blunder - I think it's beautiful! But it definitely is a great example of how color and contrast change the look of the design. I think the blue-green one is very soft and feminine where the red and dark blue ones are bold and graphic. I can see why you were crushing on that color - I love it, too!
I still think it is a beautiful quilt - AND I love the color
I agree with Dianne. It isn't a mistake - it is just a different look. I really like the tones - it is so soothing.
I struggle with value - when I look back at some of my earliest quilts I can really see how little I understood about the importance of it. However I have improved greatly and that is what counts. Sometimes having these quilts that didn't turn out exactly right is a nice reminder of what we have learned.
How many of us have been lead down the merry path because of a color. Show of hands? I see, 100%! LOL But I still love its understated beauty.
I don't see your blue/green quilt as a blunder at all. I call those low volume quilts wallflowers - they don't clamor for attention, they hold their own in a quiet, steady way.
Now off to visit the others on this hop!
Maybe you could donate that beautiful quilt. BTW What would you do differently to make that color work?
I LOVE it! I don't think there's a thing wrong with it. But if you don't think it's good enough to travel to your quilty engagements, let it live on your couch! Enjoy it!!!!! (But I do get the trouble with seeing your mistakes every day, so maybe let one of the kids have it for their bed?)
It is a lovely pastel version.
Blunder? Where?
Seems to me that, if that is the worst "blunder" you can come up with, your quilts must be perfection! Thanks for the inspiration and for sharing your talent!
I love that color too and agree with the other comments that the quilt really looks nice. I wonder if you could use a different color for the background to provide more of a contrast? Dark teal? Soft yellow?
I agree with Diann and Bernie. I love the soft colors of the blue-green; it just makes me happy to look at and it's such a different contrast than the red or blue version (also nice). I think your philosophy is spot on too!
I love the greens too so I would have made the same blunder. It's still pretty and I think you should include in your trunk shows so that it makes others think about their fabric choices.
I happen to love this blunder! It's a spin on your spin quilt...not a blunder!! I think all of us have questioned our color choices before, during and after! It's sad that you have banished that poor innocent quilt to a plastic tub!!!
Thanks for sharing this! It's a gorgeous color and worthy of crushing on. To me, this proves yet again that what we consider "errors" are really just a disconnect between expectations and results. You wanted that nice spinny pattern to really show, and it didn't. We your readers and eventually the recipient of this quilt, have no such expectations so we just see "Oo! Pretty color in a soft log cabin design variation!"
I do agree with Vicki that it would make an excellent example of how more contrast would benefit your students when making this pattern, but a photo is probably sufficient for that :)
I agree with you - sometimes I make conscious design decisions, not mistakes.
OK, I think you need to look harder, Cynthia!!! It is a soothing quilt and it may not be suitable for trunk shows but it is still lovely. I am sure there will be a dozen people who will happily take it off your hands in a heartbeat.
Ah, yes -- I made a "not enough contrast" goof quilt, too -- a Drunkard's Path that just looked like a scrappy mess but I didn't realize it until I was laying out the blocks and couldn't get the effect to work. I do like your mint green quilt and you really ought to bring it with as an alternate option because some quilters will like that softer contrast better. All of them are beautiful, really.
If you ever wanted to add more contrast, you could do some sashiko stitches in a contrasting color or colors. It could be something you could work on over time while riding in a car, waiting for an appointment, watching TV, etc. It might get that quilt out of its tub!
I actually love that color, too, and I love the quilt. You should definitely take it to the trunk shows! It's a different look, but not a bad look. Just softer than the others, that's all. And if you really don't like it, it can come live at my house! :)
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