however, part of my new year's resolutions involved trying to be more creative. this coincided with the arrival of a care package from my mama, which included my copy of amy butler's book "in stitches". i've had this book for several years and have always fantasised about making this:
the pattern is seven (!) pages long and in addition to using a lot of scary quilting-related words, looks wicked hard to make. i really yearned for a cozy quilt to put on my bed (blanket makes a better afghan. and he sheds) but i wasn't sure how wise it would be to spend £100 or more on fabric and materials only to find that i actually suck at quilting/hate sewing lots of quilting lines/etc.
so i went hunting for a class to take in london and came across this at the make lounge: log cabin quilted cushion. i liked the idea of something non-committal, e.g. a cushion. if things failed i would only be out £56 and would at least get a pillow out of the deal.
i showed up to the make lounge after work, which meant i was exhausted, slightly frazzled, and more than a little sniffly with a stubborn cold that just refused to go away. i had registered for the class weeks in advance and i was seriously considering ditching to go home and lie in my bed and watch mindless television. i'm so glad i didn't! i was the last one to arrive, which meant that the fabric selection was kind of picked over. normally this would bug me but instead i was thinking "who cares! it's just for practice!" - so i had fun and pulled a bunch of fabrics that i wasn't entirely sure went together. i did choose a "unifier" swatch though, which represented all the colours of the random fabrics i had chosen in one piece (i think i learned this tip in the interior decorating class my mom and i took about 8 years ago!) my unifier fabric looked like this:
surprise, surprise, the fabric designer of this one is amy butler. i really love amy's style and the fact that she's a fellow ohioan. she somehow manages to make even the most country-style farmhouse stuff seem chic.
anyway, i digress. as i mentioned, the type of quilting we were doing was log cabin style, which means you start with a central square and then attach different rectangles building as you go. normally i find that i'm too impatient for things like measuring, cutting, etc. but it was really therapeutic and there was something very satisfying about building my little cushion!
after all the pieces were stitched together to form a big, patchwork square, we spray glued the patchwork to batting (fluffy cottony material) then spray glued it to a backing piece. then came the hard part - measuring and drawing on the quilting lines. the quilting lines are what hold the piece together and give it a bit of texture. our instructor said we could do 1/2" or 1" space between each line. i opted for 1" because i really didn't want to be there all night sewing straight lines. i'm horrible with math and measurements and so was slightly terrified at the prospect of messing up, but it was really easy with the clear rulers the studio provided us. sewing the lines was even easier than i thought and actually went very quickly! before i knew it, i had finished quilting and was sewing up the easy peasy envelope piece for the back of the cushion.
in a mere three hours, i managed to produce something that looks roughly like a quilt!
and the fabrics that i chose willy nilly? i think they look pretty good together, all things considered. at any rate, the class made me realise i would really enjoy creating a full quilt and gave me the confidence to start hunting for fabrics. if only i had the space... :-)
