Wow, I hate this quilt! No wait, I love it! OR: Moda Blockheads 4 Quilt Progress and Completion!

Hello again! I have finished the Moda Blockheads 4 quilt!! *applause* In truth, it's extremely wonky on the top, which at first made me super irritated so I plowed through without trying to fix anything. But seeing the finished result on my bed, in all its wonky adorableness, makes me love it. I DID make that intricate quilt! I spent months making each block during the sewalong, and here it is all together! Woot!

Here is my helper, deciding to come over and chill while I was pinning it up.

 

This is the completed, wonky-as-hell, excitingly colorful, fondly memory-filled, creative lesson-giving QUILT! I have a lot more process photos and real-deal creative process musings after the jump!

So, after I pinned the front, back, and batting into my quilt sandwich (yes, you non-quilters, that IS the technical term, no joke!), my first task was to quilt it together. I stitched in the ditch on all the sashing seams. Now, here is where it gets frustrating!

I don't have an 85"x85" open piece of floor (or wall for that matter) upon which to lay my quilt. (And I've long ago learned the lesson of not pinning it on the bed . . . because you end up pinning it TO the bed.) So when I pinned it, I had to fold sections of it away to work on the rest. I know some quilters stretch their layers all neatly and anchor them to the floor with masking tape, and all sorts of other commendable procedures that get great results. Well, guess what? I didn't do that. Again, I didn't have the space, and even if I did, I wouldn't have the patience. Plus, all my small quilts have come out great without doing any of that!

But this one didn't. As you can see below, after the initial stitching down the middle, all the other perpendicular stitching got bunchy as it approached what I had already done. YES, I was using a walking foot, but it still happened! So every "crossroads" had at least one, if not multiple, instances of wonky wonky wonky folding and bunching as shown below.

I got really sad, because here I am in the midst of this GIANT, CUMBERSOME quilt, and it's not like I'm going to pick out all my stitching and do it over. I just accepted that the bunching had happened, was happening, and would keep happening. I got pretty upset and at this point, I hated the quilt!

I was mad that all my careful work on each block over ALL THAT TIME was now looking super crappy once I assembled everything together. What is the point of making intricate components, if the finished piece is just going to be a mess? I felt like I ruined it. And with that feeling, came my givvy-uppy vibe of not caring anymore, so I admittedly did a sloppy job on everything else, because WHO CARES?

Definitely not the right attitude, I know. But there it is.

Anyway, I had to see it through, so I carried on.

Once it was quilted, I trimmed the edges. One might say I "squared them up", but there's nothing square about this quilt! (ha ha, yes, it's supposed to be a square, but I knew way ahead of time it wouldn't be even.) None of my quilts are at perfect right angles, because honestly I DON'T CARE about that, as long as they are big enough to do the job and look festive and fun. One might call them "rustic" or "charming" or simply "handmade". ;)

Once I trimmed it, I went around the edge with one more line of topstitching, roughly 2" away from the edge. I didn't want to risk the batting shifting all over the place there. Oh! and a couple places needed extra batting where bafflingly there was none, so I pinned in small pieces in here and there.

Next came the binding! I made myself plenty of double-fold half-inch bias tape from a half yard of fabric. I was going to show you the method I used, but I actually didn't like it. In a future post, I'll show you my preferred method. Anyway, I ended up with 701" of bias tape, which is . . . an insane amount. LOL! I have plenty left for future projects!

In case no one has bound a quilt (shocking!), I'll show you some process. I opened up the tape and sewed it down . . . making my mitred corners . . .

And I left about 15" of extra to work with on the ends . . . I never join my binding at an angle, because WHY??? It seems so much more effortful. So I butted it up at a right angle as usual.

Here is the binding all joined and ready to be refolded and sewn down completely! I did a pretty slipshod job, because like I said, at this point I was hating this quilt hard.

The finished quilt, front and back!

Here's the thing, though. Once I washed it and it got all nice and puffy, and once I laid it on the bed, I knew I actually loved this quilt something fierce. I was so proud of myself! It's a quilt with beautiful blocks, wonky "ugly" sashing, and a fun, pieced back that technically has nothing wrong with it. All bound in a jaunty green floral binding!

And once I used it, both as a light summer quilt and layered over another blanket (it's been cold at night lately), I was extremely glad I made it. Totally crappy quilting aside!

So the moral of the story is twofold. One, don't start hating your project and giving up and quitting your best efforts when one thing goes irreparably wrong. Just take the wonkiness for what it is and keep doing your best. Don't freak out; you're taking time to make something with your own hands, so it will be inherently awesome.

Two, let's say you do hate it anyway and get all cranky like I did. That's OK. It's totally understandable when a project isn't cooperating and coming together like you thought it would! Stupid project! Arrrgh! I'm giving you your validation that problems and mistakes and snags ARE FLIPPING ANNOYING! We're sad when we're not going to end up with our ideal. Go ahead and get that out of your system! You don't have to pretend to be all calm and collected like a rational adult. You can say, "Wow, I hate this quilt!" and truly hate it, and then finish it anyway! Actually, I recommend it!

A third point, you don't have to rush through a project when one thing goes wrong, basically making it worse or "wrecking it". In theory, I could have taken a step back at that first bunchy intersection and figured out a new approach. Re-pinning, taping down, blah blah blah, all the things careful, skilled craftspeople lovingly do with no regard to how long this project has taken and you just want to be done!! Ha ha! That was not me in this case. But I no longer feel that I've "wasted" the care that went into the blocks. They're still lovely blocks!

Another lesson for me personally, is to think twice before attempting a giant quilt. I really didn't like the quilting process in the end, on my machine. It was TOO MUCH. Throw quilts, couch quilts, baby quilts: these are all more manageable and therefore have better results!

I would also caution myself with big projects that have intricate components. Either make sure they come together really nicely (commit all that time to being careful in assembly up front), or perhaps don't overdo it on the components. "Good enough" is the concept I'm thinking of here. Big, drawn-out projects become a REAL PAIN (to me at least) if they just keep going on and on into eternity. I think smaller/shorter might be sweeter. :)

How about you? Any projects you've flubbed and then either rescued, hated, or loved in the end anyway? Do you have patience for long projects? Leave a comment!