My Talking Quilt

Do you have conversations with your quilt?  I do.  Sometimes my side of the conversation needs some cleaning up, but we do converse.  When I stitch nicely my quilt dances.  When I try to go my own way my quilt chastises me.

I draw my designs out on tracing paper, but I forgot something.  I filled in all the spaces and it looked so nice on paper, but when I began to stitch I realized that if I fill all those spaces with stitches, there will be no puff.  Empty spaces don't look good on paper, but they look beautiful on a quilt.  My quilt agrees, "YES!"  See below.  I filled one side with the pebbles, but the remaining un-quilted sides showed me that the fill was no good.  Have you ever ripped out pebbles?

Pebbles = No Puff

My designs are drawn with pencil on paper that is basically white so there are still thread color choices to make.  I thought I had them all worked out, but the quilt disagreed.  I have tried all ideas and threads on the scrap sandwich, but it is different when translated to the actual quilt.

Here is our conversation regarding the latest motif:

Quilt:  "Get rid of the black thread.  It makes me feel dirty and depressed." (no photo)

Me:  "OK.  It is gone.  I will use red."

The upper motif is filled with red and a diagonal grid.

Quilt:  "Ick.  It doesn't show.  Now I feel completely invisible.  I know you didn't plan on using orange thread, but I think that is the answer to make me feel alive.  The diagonal grid is bad."

Me:  "OK.  Red is gone.  I give up.  Orange it is and I'll change the grid."

Quilt:  "I LOVE it.  Now I can dance. I can fly. I will be noticed.  I love being surrounded by gold.  I feel like a queen."

Success!  You can't see the puff on the lower motif, but it makes a nice frame.
(photo slightly distorted)

I was ripping out the curved, diagonal grid (see the other photo) on the upper motif and noticed that the vertical seam in the middle really disrupted puff.  I changed the grid to vertical instead of diagonal with the center grid line on the seam, and worked out to the sides.  Now the seam doesn't even show.  The gold metallic pebbles don't shine in the photo, but they are a real WOW factor.

TIP:  Keep your seam ripper, scissors and tweezers close at hand.  Don't be lazy and leave it if the quilt begins to scream at you.  The more you ignore the quilt's conversation the more ripping, or the less you will love your quilt.

I hate to rip as much as the next person, but I will continue to do so if it doesn't look right.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you perseverance to achieve your goals.