Number two came off the long arm frame over the weekend and I had a blast quilting it! I’ve been waiting to do this one, with all the custom ruler work, and after the first one with the all over geometric design came off, I challenged myself to take the plunge and go for it. This is the biggest quilt I’ve done with the exception of the twin size I made for my daughter a while back, and that one was quilted on the sit down machine.
This pattern is called “Mellow” and it’s from the book Modern One-Block Quilts by Natalia Bonner and Kathleen Whiting. I’m kind of on a roll with the patterns in this book because they’re so cool! They inspire me to stretch my custom quilting ideas from the spontaneous wild quilting style I love and have grown comfortable with to the more confined and planned designs, and these patterns lend themselves very well to helping me build my ruler confidence 🙂
I did use some of Natalia’s ideas for the ruler work, throwing in some free motion spirals because they’re a favourite, and some figure eights because I really wanted to work on practicing those.
It’s now all washed and cuddly and available for sale in my Etsy shop 🙂
I was inspired by a conversation I had last evening and again when I watched a short video this morning; both fit in well with the ongoing reflection I’ve been doing about the importance of following my passion in the direction it takes me and have reinforced for me the need to keep my focus on doing what I love to do, in the style I love to do it. There are so many aspects to quilting – or any other art form! – so finding what makes us happy and then deciding to focus our attention in a specific direction is not only beneficial, but necessary to our overall progress. I can’t provide all services to all people; I can’t make all the quilts! But I can be true to myself and honest with others. Only in that do we continue to learn about ourselves and what we’re capable of accomplishing! Of course, as Angela Walters often says, I am only the expert of my own opinion …
I encourage you today to start making something you really want to make but are putting off because it’s really hard and you think you have all kinds of other steps you need to try before you can dig in and make it. You will never know until you try, and often we quite happily surprise ourselves 🙂
Ann Walsh Quilting 