the bane of my sewing existence

This quilt truly is the project that will not die. By "die" I mean "finish." This blog was created to force myself to work on it weekly so that I have no choice but to complete it.

I began sketching this quilt about three years ago and I regret almost every choice I made about it. From the initial idea, it was supposed to be an "R" in a Times New Roman-style font. Excited about my new project and addicted to black and white, I shopped for the right fabrics for months. Probably over-excited, I bought fabric that I liked but didn't love, and now kind of hate. The black is your ordinary flowered/swirly design, and the white is a pinstripe that you can't even see. In retrospect, I would've chosen many different black fabrics and many different white fabrics to create the same design, but honestly that idea just didn't come to me until later. The style of the "R" also changed as I began cutting my fabric. I realized I'd have trouble with the curved seams and matching them to the straight seems while also allowing for a 1/4" seam allowance. The math nearly killed me. So I searched for an easier pattern and eventually settled on this angular, straighter "R." I don't like it, but it works. All that fabric I'd already cut for the first pattern? Can't use it. So what would've been about a 5' x 7' quilt is now about 4' x 6' because I ran out of usable fabric and can't match the patterns. As if these weren't enough problems, when I sewed up the rows of pieces, my seams didn't match up. It was bad. Extremely noticeable and terribly frustrating. So I took them all out and tried to stretch the fabric. Still didn't work. Leave it to my dad to come up with the idea of adding a fringe to outline "R" and cover those seams that don't line up. Eventually, that will happen.

My next step is adding a border of black satin around the quilt top, and another of green fabric. The white/black/green/gray butterfly fabric I plan to use for the back. As for the actual quilting, this is the pattern I've chosen. It's simple, and will hopefully speed the finishing process. I don't even care about being happy with the final product, I just want to be done with it. (Though I'm sure I'll probably like it and be proud of myself for not giving up.)