Chocolate Anyone?

Some days it just doesn’t pay to turn on the sewing machine. There are days when you’d be better off reading a good book or eating lots of chocolate. I had a day like that Saturday. I am working on a queen sized quilt for our upcoming Best Fat Quarter Quilts special issue and the deadline for the finished quilt is tomorrow. I had the quilt top completed and ready to quilt on Friday morning. I even brought it to work to show the rest of the team. I felt pretty good about it. To quilt a queen sized quilt over the weekend is definitely doable.

I selected a quilting pattern with a pretty flower in the center of the block and a curvy frame for the outside of the block. I did one flower and started the frame. It didn’t look like I wanted it to. I did some un-sewing. Every quilter knows that sewing is fun but un-sewing is work.

Next I decided to do an allover loop-de-loop design. So I started quilting. I am not sure where my brain was but it certainly wasn’t in my head at the sewing machine. I quilted for several HOURS before I remembered to check the back. Wouldn’t you know there was a fold, not a small pucker, but a flat out fold? And of course, it was clear back near the center of the quilt where I’d started. I am pretty much a perfectionist and I just couldn’t ignore such an obvious mistake. I spent the rest of Saturday and half of Sunday un-sewing. Again, sewing is fun but un-sewing is work! I remember being in a class once when a student asked the teacher how far she should go before she checked the back of her work. The teacher asked, “How far are you willing to tear out?”

I always say that when life is good, I eat chocolate to celebrate. And when life is bad, I eat chocolate, it makes me feel better. I scrounged in the kitchen looking for chocolate but I found nothing.

When I was telling Mary Kate and Joli about my disaster, Mary Kate said (tongue in cheek) I should have left it and called it art and said that if the viewer didn’t understand my art, I wasn’t going to try to explain it.

Tonight I’ll work on it some more and think of what to name it. I always try to think about that as I am quilting. Sometimes, the name just pops into my head – other times, I struggle with the name. I tend to use song titles “Green, Green, It’s Green They Say” or sarcasm “I Kissed a Frog for This?” All I can think of for the fat quarter quilt is “Misery”, “Darn It All Anyway”, “Un-sewing Stinks” or “I Think I Need Chocolate!” Do you have a good name for my quilt?

I sure hope your weekend was more productive than mine!