Permission to Practice

It’s been an interesting month getting back in the groove. I decided to work on some smaller projects because my brain was in a bit of the fog for several weeks post-COVID.

I started this piece in January during the Declutter Challenge. It’s a paper pieced pattern called Orion’s Spur, by Christina DeMiranda of Ships and Violins. I made it completely out of pieces from Mt Scrapmore. It was a good project to start the year. It was fun, short and challenging... and it was nice to follow directions instead of starting from scratch.

It remained in my ‘to-be-quilted’ pile longer than it should have, because (what else) I didn’t know how to quilt it.

But last week I pulled it out and loaded it on the longarm. I was determined not to stress about the final design. It was made from 100% scraps including the batting. I would just practice and play and see what happens. A little easier said than done.

Though it was a small project it took a week, done bit-by-bit over a couple of days. I started trying to choose one colour thread, then I thought why not use two.

I did check online to see what others had done with this pattern. They inspired me, but funnily, what I ended up quilting was quite different.

I started echoing the centre motif. Then that changed to radiating lines. Which turned into diamonds.

Next, I did this micro stippling in yellow. Then I grabbed a third thread in orange to complete the center and tried some wonky stars.

I am about 80% satisfied with the result, which changed to 95% once I trimmed it and turned it into a pillow.

While working on this quilt I was binge-listening to Haptic and Hue. And I had the pleasure of having Joanna Demenjian on Karen’s Quilt Circle this week who I first discovered on this podcast. The story of the thousands of quilts that Canada sent to Europe in WWII is nothing short of herculean…and why have we never heard of this before. Please take a moment and listen to Joanna talk about her research.