Going to give it a try

I am not particularly good at sewing.  I fight with my machine (it hates me you know).  Curves are painful for me.  I can read a simple pattern, but it always seems to me that they make them more complex than I want.  And it lacks the rhythm of knitting, the feel of painting or the satisfying click of a camera.

I do however like to play with fabric, and mix patterns together.  I am capable of sewing straight lines.  And I love looking at quilts on line.  I like the ones where all the colours match, or they’ve done some fancy pattern or cutting technique, but my very favourites are the scrap quilts. The ones where the colour palette is “All of them”.  The kind that include that last special scrap of fabric from the stash, or a bit of old clothing.  Where nothing matches, and there are random amounts of each fabric.  I have contemplated making such a quit over the years, but I don’t have the leftover fabric stash necessary.  And then there’s all that cutting.  So I would look at the quilts, and think, maybe someday.

Then last week I was out with a friend, and I found this.

A whole stack of pre-cut squares.  Enough for a standard size single comforter cover. They were wrapped in plastic, so I knew I was taking a risk – there could be some pretty awful prints buried in there.  Still, it was only $10.  I have a small fabric stash that I was willing to use, in fact want to use to make it more personal.  What the heck, I decided.  I’m going to give it a try.  This quilt will be for Punky, my constant and favourite Muse and source of inspiration, and huge lover of blankets.  It’s not going to be fancy; so far the pattern I am going with is “Sew all the squares together”.  But I think she will like it.  You can see the small stack of squares there – those are the ones I cut today, to replace the fugly ones that I pulled from the stack.  Oh yeah, there are some good ones – check it out.

Pretty sure the brown and orange on the right are actually from 1976. Bleh!