I am going to make a quilt!

I am a quilter and a patchworker, so I am going to make a quilt. 

I have fabrics, of course, and I keep them in a kind of order. Fat quarters, smaller than fat quarters, scraps. Oh and I have a Christmas box, a denim box, a  box of plains, a box of shirtings, a box of  boys’ metres and a box of girls’ metres. (I won’t mention the ‘special’ box with fabrics in which I am collecting for ‘special’ projects.) .........and don’t ask about the wadding and the fleece!!

So, where do I start?  I have a pattern in mind.  It needs a couple of metres of fabric, a few fat quarters, bit of this, bit of that.  So I start to go through my fabrics and pull out the ones which I think would work, and put them on the table.  This of course is no easy task, because as I am going through my boxes, I find fabric I had totally forgotten about, start reminiscing where it was bought, how much it cost, who gave it to me, what did I buy it for originally..........

Three hours later, I have a pile of fabric on my table. It is actually a remarkably small pile because as I have gone through my vast collection  the phrases ‘no I can’t use that’, ‘no I like that too much to put in a quilt I am going to sell’, ‘no that’s one of my favourites (this piece usually has holes cut from it and is actually no good for anything anymore, but I still can’t part with it), ‘no, that’s too girly’, ‘no that’s too boyish’ ‘no I have never liked that, whatever possessed me to buy that in the first place?’ So I am left with a small but hopefully adequate pile of fabrics and I settle down to work out the pattern. 

Recently most of my quilts have been made up by me, I have drawn them out roughly in my design book, and then transfer them onto graph paper.  If it is a commission I regularly post photos on my page of how things are going, the fabrics I have finally chosen – well probably chosen – all for the clients approval.  I colour in the chart according to the fabrics I have chosen and gradually build up a picture of how the quilt will look.  This is when the problems start. All the fabrics are fine except one piece – it just doesn’t ‘fit’, it’s the wrong shade, it’s just not right. I just need a piece of fabric in a certain shade of a certain colour to finish off the design of this quilt.

After another 3 hours, going through the boxes all over again, even looking into the Christmas box in case I put some in there ‘by mistake’ (this ends in disaster because I realise I need more Christmas fabrics). I actually even look into my special fabrics – do you realise just what a sacrifice this is?  Nothing. Not one piece of fabric in the whole of my stash will do.  Not a single, solitary piece. What am I going to do?

I am going fabric shopping because I NEED this specific piece of fabric, nothing else will do, the quilt won’t work without it, so I have to go, besides, I need more Christmas fabric to don’t I?

Mrs Goose x