Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Love was blind

     Two years ago, I bought a kit from Quilters Corners in Ithaca, NY when I was on vacation. I fell in love with the fabric. The quilt made with the fabric was up high on the wall. There was no more of any of the fabrics because they cut up the bolts to make the kits. The kit package was all stapled together with the pattern (proprietary) inside. 
     As a rule, I don't buy kits. Maybe when Connecting Threads has lap size ones that I use for comfort quilts, but still, I can say I have never been enamored with the completed quilts. That is ok, I give them away to people who love them.
     However, this was an expensive kit, and the fabrics were from all different manufacturers. I caved because I fell in love with the collection of grays and the values. I bought it. When I opened it up at home, to my dismay, the instruction called for making blocks, slicing on the diagonal, swapping sides, sewing together and FUSING the contrasting strip and zig zagging it down. Yikes- I hate fusible and I hate raw edges, especially an entire quilt of slashes. I asked advice and experimented and had to recut the size of the centers, cut 1" strips, sew them in, try to match up the other side (marking, pinning, etc), to get them in order. No matter how hard I tried, the squares don't align. I finished the light value borders and have a border of darks with light centers (just need trimming) and then bigger blocks- med. borders with dark centers. 
    I still love the fabric but loathe working on this due to the difficulties lining things up. Here are the light blocks.


4 comments:

Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson said...

The blocks are attractive. How big are they? I would be tempted to deviate from the kit directions and finish it however I liked.

Quiltdivajulie said...

I agree with Wanda - use the fabrics but make the rest of the quilt YOUR way.

A Left-Handed Quilter said...

I love the fabrics, too - and wouldn't even bother trying to "line things up" - it looks GREAT just the way it is. I must admit that I didn't even notice until you said something - I thought it was a "design choice" - and a very good one - ;))

Louise said...

I can see why you were drawn to the fabrics and the design, and why you were so disappointed in the directions! I hate fusing, too. I'd love to see the dark blocks, too.