In Lucinda's Garden

There's a pattern in a past issue of Fons' and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine called "In Lucinda's Garden". It is constructed around a printed faux applique panel reproducing images from a famous applique quilt called the Reconciliation Quilt. After staring at the pattern a few days I decided to make it, but I had trouble finding the fabrics locally and in the usual web stores I frequent. I did find the printed "applique" panel on Ebay, though.

I put the panel and the pattern away and didn't think about it for a while as I completed other projects. Then, last night as a rummaged through the storage drawer in my bookcase where I keep partially finished projects, I came upon the panel again and started thinking. Serendipitously, the same evening I got an email from Fons's and Porter's magazine webstore and they had a kit for the quilt, on sale no less. I was about to break down and buy the kit but was rescued by the fact that their checkout process was malfunctioning and would not include the discount coupon for the sale price. I shot off an email to their customer support line about the problem and left it at that.

A little later, I started thinking about what was in my stash, and whether I could mimic the look of the quilt using only fabric already in the house. I already had the panel, after all. So into the closet I went, pulling boxes and comparing colors. There's a work table in that room where the cat's bed (actually a cube) sits; someone using that table makes her irritated. You should have seen the looks she gave me as piles of fabrics grew around her doorway.

So, I moved to the floor, laying the panel in the center of an arrangement of possible selections, neutrals on one side, darks on the other, highlighted fabrics on the third. Finally, I had come up with a possible group of fabrics that would give the look of the quilt, if not the exact replication of it. On second thought this morning I need to pull a few more yellows, but I'm almost there.

To think that I almost bought another kit to add to my burgeoning closet. Another stash-buster. Yay!

Select your fabrics carefully!

Here's something I bet you don't think of when picking your quilt fabrics. I'm in the process of binding this gift quilt. Staring at the small bias check of the binding next to the striae fabric of the backing is about to drive me stone blind. After a while the little checks start to move in my vision and I have to step away for a while. It's hard to see the edge where the needle goes into the backing fabric due to all those little lines. I will be very glad when this one is done!

Listening to the fabric

I'm making a Project Linus quilt using a large print from the "Fanciful Felines" line by Laurel Burch. It has bright orange, green, blue, pink, purple and yellow in the design. When I bought the yardage, I picked out fat quarters of predominately green, orange and purple, as well as a few fat quarters of purple and hot pink batiks that I got for free when I filled my punch card at Lavender Lime quilt shop. In the shop, they looked fine - bright, interesting and compatible.

When I started cutting out the quilt at home I held every piece of fabric up to the print, and except for purple and pink they all shouted "NO, NO, NO!" The purple and pink cozied up to the print and purred "Oh, yes, just imagine us as a cute little girl's quilt."

"But I didn't want to make a gender specific quilt this time. This bright fabric will be OK for any little kid."

"Nope," the focus fabric replied coyly. "This is a little girl's quilt, and you can't make me be anything else."

Chastened, I used the purples and the hot pinks in the blocks. Then came time to pick sashing. Again, I tried the greens.

'You're not listening," the fabric protested. "I said pink." And it wouldn't be argued with.

So to the stash closet I went and pulled out a few softer pinks. And, just like the three bears, one of them was JUST right. So I'm not making the quilt I envisioned at all.

The moral of this story is that sometimes even the best planned color schemes fall apart, and we need to be open to see other possibilities. We stack the bolts up in the quilt shop and squint at the colors, trying to imagine them blended together in blocks. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. I figure that it's hard to hear the fabric talking to you in that visually busy environment. At home, lay it all out and let the color story it tells best come to you. Trust your gut feelings, and be open to change.

If you're a controlling sort of personality, this is hard. But I know every one of you has completed a quilt top that was 90% there design-wise, and just couldn't figure out where that last 10% went. Something just wasn't right. Often you try to convince yourself it is OK as it is. Sometimes you start ripping out seams and doing a little cosmetic surgery.

Projects that fall a little short of the mark are learning experiences, I tell myself every time. It's true. But while I'm wielding the seam ripper, that seems a dear price to pay!