Drowning in Mistakes

Sometimes you can plan and plan for months and everything still doesn’t work out. But when that happens, you need to have a support group, a glass of wine, and a seam ripper to correct your mistakes and move forward.

I have these really good friends. Fun facts: they’re expecting their second baby, we spend a week at the beach together every year, and the male half of the couple is terrified of crabs and jellyfish.

So, naturally, I started hunting for ocean and crab themed fabrics. Because that’s the kind of person I am.

I found this collection at Fabric.com from Blank quilting. The jellyfish and crabs seemed friendly enough to be on the joke end of the spectrum rather than the cruel end.

I looked at it for over a month but it was around Christmas and I was overwhelmed with fabric and projects, so I kept putting off buying the yardage.

And then a MIRACLE – my local quilt store had it in stock! So I was able to see it in person and fall even more deeply in love.

I went in one day and purchased what I would need for a snowball + 9 patch quilt. Buying it in person also gave me the opportunity to pick through fat quarters to find what would make a spectacular and unique quilt.

And I cut out over 200 2.5” squares. Seriously, over 200, fueled mostly by rose drinking. This is what that looks like:

I pieced together those squares and the bigger 6.5” squares with the crabs and jellyfish (some people might think it is whales and jellyfish – but we know it is crabs and jellyfish).

And then I pieced on the border. It didn’t look quite right. But sometimes quilts don’t look quite right until you have it finished and see the full, amazing picture and fall in love.

Plus, I have astigmatism, so sometimes I have to wonder about how I perceive lines. But honestly, this made my eyeballs hurt. I walked away.

This is where the story gets amazing.

While I was taking a lap to refill on wine and seltzer water, I texted a picture of the quilt top to my quilting friends. The message read:

“Honest opinion needed. Is this too much color? I can remove the reefs and find a blender fabric.”

While I am an introvert and love quilting because I can do it alone, having friends who know about fabric, color, and quilting has saved my sanity several times. That night was no different.

The texts started flying:

“It like it. I could go either way.”

“I think it works since it picks up all the 9 block fabrics. It is busy but that’s what you want for a baby blanket.”

“What are you talking about? You can never have too much color!”

After many, many texts (thank goodness for unlimited texting) we came to the conclusion that the answer was to switch out the lighter color fabric for a darker color.

Which led to a session with the seam ripper to remove the original border. But once I finally got the new border on, the top looks so much better! (This is after quilting)

Here is what I concluded from that night:

1. Even though you have been planning something for months doesn’t mean that it will turn out perfectly the first time.

2. Get some quilting friends who will be honest with you and who you can rely on to talk you through a meltdown.

3. Sometimes when a project isn’t going well, you need to walk away, pour some wine, and come back to it after a minute.

4. And then you might need to drink that wine while ripping out seams that took you hours to create.

5. Simply because fabrics come from the same collection does not mean that they will go together in every quilt. While not having to match up colors is great – you do have to think about balance in the quilt.

 

In the end it turned into a beautiful quilt with enough color to help with brain development, but not so much than an adult’s eyeballs hurt. Win!