Problem child

I hope you all had a wonderful first weekend of summer!  Ours was quite nice.  I'm happy to tell you that our experiments with various Philadelphia treats were generally successful.  Water ice is a kind of creamy snowcone-like frozen dessert.  They can also make it into a slushy drink, which is definitely what I would recommend.  

So, raise your hand if you have ever made a bad color choice on a quilt.  Good to know I'm not alone! I made a bad color choice and have been correcting it for the last week or so, and will be for a little while longer.  What else was there to do?  Here is the original block:

The back story:  My daughter got married in April and I am making a quilt for their wedding present.  This is what I've been doing "in the background" for a while now, which is why there have been so many small projects posted lately.  I haven't wanted to show it until it's all done, and they haven't seen it yet. The kids chose the Eureka pattern for their quilt, which is made log cabin style:

To choose colors, we spent some time with the Hoffman color panel. It worked great!  I am never cutting this panel up! I bought fabric and got to work.

The pattern is really well organized and very easy to follow, though it does have a few quirks.  You'll probably want to make the triangles differently, for example.  Although the design looks complicated, the blocks are easy to make and the pattern is very detailed. (My only tiny problem with it is that there will be bias edges on some of the blocks along the perimeter of the quilt, but I plan to stay-stitch the edges anyway, so it's not a big deal.)

The pattern calls for 4 "creams" as backgrounds, but I decided to go ahead and use all one color for the backgrounds.  That was my bad decision.  I made a bunch of blocks (not all!) and you can see that they turned out to be pretty bland.  I knew there was something wrong but couldn't put my finger on it.

Yep, it was the decision to use the same color for all of the backgrounds.

So, what to do but get some more fabric and grab the seam ripper?  This is the new block:

The ripping has been zero fun, but I think it's totally been worth it. (And yay! I get to stitch miters again!)  I chose the deeper yellow to match their wedding flowers, and together the whole mass of blocks reminds me a lot of the bouquets.  Adding the yellow also gives the quilt a lot more life.

I'm a lot happier with this quilt now, and I bet they will be too!  I know there's a lot of ripping to do, but there really aren't a lot of changes to be made, so they can be stripped in pretty easily.  Still no fun, but there's a big payoff in the end.

May your color choices all be perfect so you don't have to follow in my footsteps!  I'm off to rip some more!

Sharing at Linky Tuesday and Let's Bee Social.

Confession is good for the soul

Everybody has a secret, and Amy over at 13 Spools started a little thing that is making it's way around the interwebs--10 quilty little secrets! So here's my confession. Tell me yours in the comments, or link up with Amy and let the world know! But definitely go check out some others in her linkup, because it will make you feel better about your own secrets.




 1. I have stopped buying quilting magazines because they all look the same and many of the projects are designed to sell something, usually something expensive that I would stick in a drawer anyway. (Seriously, Accuquilt should start its own magazine already.)

2.The best thing my grandmother ever taught me? "Don't worry--it will quilt out."

3.I really, really dislike pieced backings.

4.Sometimes I plan or doodle quilts or designs during meetings. It's possible that I have lost track of the meeting topic once or twice while doing this.

5. I feel guilty about how much fabric I own.

6. I often love the process much more than the finished product.

7. I love my longarm quilter but secretly think that edge to edge designs make my quilts look like they came from a store. I can't afford custom quilting or my own longarm, so the alternative is unfinished quilts because the big quilts I make are too much for me to quilt on my own. Yes, shame on me.

8. I like quilt shows but the idea of competition between quilters turns my stomach.

9. Paper piecing? Yes! Applique? Sure! Hexies and EPP? Why not! Traditional? Absolutely. Modern? Maybe, if you get rid of all the gray and fill up those empty spaces. Civil war? No. Wonky? Please get out of my sewing room.

10. I break every quilting "rule." I use lots of steam, sew over pins, iron with abandon, use cheap needles and thread, never prewash, cut the 'wrong' way, and use rotary blades until I can run them across my hand without getting cut. I also buy some of my fabric at rummage sales. Pretty sure that's a no-no.

And a bonus secret (that I bet a bunch of people share):

11. Even though I've been doing this for a long time, I secretly worry that I'm not very good at it.

That's it for today! Share your secrets in the comments!