The story in pictures of my first ever patchwork quilt. I was racking my brains trying to think of what I could make for one of the most awesome couples I know as their wedding gift, given that money was not just tight but non-existent, and the travel costs alone to their wedding would just about wipe me out. And I realised I had a whole ton of material… the more I thought about it, the more it tickled me, the idea that the most un-traditional wedding I’ve ever been to (lesbian) would be accompanied by the most traditional present I could ever have thought of. Unfortunately this inspiration only struck me a week before the big day, and so after that it was a bit of a mission to try and get it all done. And I aaaaallmost made it…
SUNDAY: realise quite early on that this mission is going to be impossible to complete without large amounts of cake. Bake said cake. Not delaying tactics at all, oh nooo.
SUNDAY: lay all your bits out on the bed and realise you need to make lots more bits.
MONDAY: finish stitching the squares together & realise you need lots more bits.
TUESDAY: start adding more bits before realising you will need lots more bits.
sit in a corner of the room hugging your knees and rocking gently back and forth, gazing at the quilt pieces, as you realise what a fucking insane project you have taken on. then pull yourself together, make a large coffee (though wish you had some gin) and get on with it.
WEDNESDAY: make eleventy-million more little squares, sew bits together, and realise you need more bits.
also realise that a quilt like this will give the recipients acid flashbacks and needs to be calmed down a bit in the interests of their ongoing mental health.
note dvds in top corner are because you have watched the whole of series 1 & 2 of battlestar galactica whilst snipping & stitching (also the 6 ep mini-series).
THURSDAY: rejoice in having a digital camera so that you can take pics of squares so you don’t have to remember what order all the bits are supposed to go in when it comes to stitching them.
FRIDAY: find a big plain bit and add it, which has the effect of calming down the scary trip effect and also of being ONE BIG BIT of cloth not 7 billion tiny bits. lazy, moi?
SATURDAY: make a quilt sandwich with a bedsheet on the bottom, thermal blanket in the middle, quilt on top. safety pin 100x all across it to keep the sandwich together when stitching. sew round the edges & trim. then realise you have no unbroken sewing machine needles, or hours in the day to do handstitching left to do the binding and cry.
Decide you are going to take quilt as wedding present anyway just to show them what they could have won.
