Laugh With Me

“Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused,'" Gabriel quoted. "One of the unrecorded Beatitudes.” ―Terri Garey, Devil Without a Cause

I provide myself plenty of entertainment. Yesterday, for example, I finished binding the wallhanging and decided I would take it and the purple and green quilt out to photograph. I finally got a new battery for my Sony Alpha-100 DSLR camera. That wasn’t a cheap camera when I bought it 15 or so years ago, and I really ought to be using it instead of the iPhone. I have several nice lenses for it, too.

I did the wallhanging first:

Adding that black binding helped finish it off. The border doesn’t look like it’s floating in space now. And that swag quilting along the edges absolutely was the right choice.

Then I hung up the purple and green quilt. And I looked at it. Do you see it?

These blocks were all supposed to have Kona White as the background, but somewhere along the line, I must have pulled a chunk of Kona not-White (Kona Bone or Kona Snow are the most likely suspects) out of my stash and used it instead. I have been working on this quilt for the last two months—including two days of quilting it under the bright LED lights on my Q20—and never noticed the difference in the shades. If the creamier white were evenly distributed among the blocks, I would have called it a design element, LOL.

All I could do when I saw this was laugh. I’m not upset. I had planned all along to remake this quilt in a different colorway at some point. And I do like the addition of the creamier white, so that may get factored into the remake of the quilt, although I will be sure to place it in a more controlled manner.

Some days I am a good example and some days I am a horrible warning. Learn from me. I really ought to get into the habit of cutting all my fabrics at once instead of piecemeal. I also need to figure out some better lighting for my cutting area.

I also had an epiphany about quilt names while I was standing outside laughing at myself. Quilt names need to reflect the design of the quilt and not necessarily the colors, so calling this design something like “Lilac Chain” isn’t going to work. What if a quilter decided to make it in Christmas colors? (Yes, quilters can use their imaginations and not get stuck on a particular colorway, but I can tell you from my experience as a knitting designer that it doesn’t work that way.) “Thistle Chain” is a bit better, but not much. “Pokey Stars” is nice and descriptive, but perhaps not in the best way. Needless to say, I’m still thinking about a name for this one.

So. The wallhanging can get written up as a pattern, although I still want to play around with that block and perhaps do a larger version. The purple and green quilt will be re-made, too, but with more careful attention paid to fabric shades and placement. I also have the design to make that I am calling Duck Duck Goose. I may set aside a day or two later this week for some marathon cutting sessions. I’ve got some new dies for the Studio cutter that will help with the prep work.