It was the Roman Square quilt pattern. It was two contrasting
colors, red and white. It was queen size. It became my sewing nemesis.
The Beast, as I came to call it, was my very first serious
sewing project at the age of early twenty something. It was the beginning and
ending of a very short sewing period spanning over a couple of years and “it”
followed me through too many moves to count, including our last move to Indiana
10 years ago. For twenty plus years I
carried the Beast around.
Hours and hours were spent cutting those little rectangles
and organizing them and sewing them together to make my first quilt top. Then more hours sewing the small blocks in to bigger blocks. After many months, I managed to get the Beast pieced. Amazing really, now that I
think of it. It was huge and daunting
and I had never heard of and didn't know how to research “machine piecing” or any other number of quilting
techniques that would have made the job much more doable and enjoyable.
If I had only knew, the "easy" part was done because then came the much dreaded quilting. If it had never occurred
to me to machine piece, then you can imagine I did not know one could actually quilt
on a sewing machine! How revolutionary!! Even more revolutionary, the idea that
one could pay someone else to quilt
your Beast. Not that I could have done
that anyway, we were young and flat broke.
On a remote air base in the long winter months of Upper
Michigan,
 |
| Desolete. |
I would dutifully haul out the large quilting hoop and dutifully get
my hand quilting thread and attempt to
hand quilt the Beast. Strangely the Beast
never seem to change. I know it did because I had to move the hoop and that
thread WAS going somewhere. Dutifully, bury my knots, dutifully [try] to keep
my stitches small and even. Dutifully, I learned to hate the Beast and
quilting.
It is odd to me now, but except for a few small projects such as a
table runner or a set of napkins, I was loyal to the Beast. I never started
another major project, always feeling I HAD to complete the Beast first. Over
time it became official. The Beast defined me as a sewer. I couldn’t move on to
something else and I couldn’t finish the Beast so... I just stopped sewing altogether.
It might have gone differently if I had help. My
mother-in-law was a quilter. I have several quilts she lovingly and
painstakingly hand pieced and quilted but, she was 600 miles away. My own
mother, while not a quilter, was an avid garment sewer and my Aunt worked at a textile
factory whipping up clothing for Levi’s and LL Bean in nothing flat. 600 miles
away. It didn’t occur to me to find someone in my
own community to help me. I
wouldn’t have known where to start but I knew people quilted. I lovingly and longingly
looked at the magazines my mother-in-law had given me.
The quilts were
glorious! Laying there in all their rich colors and seemingly complicated patterns!
The Ohio star, the coveted Log Cabin, Grandmother’s Garden, Double Wedding
Ring, the list was endless. It seemed so
simple to match up all those corners and rectangles in the pictures. And
triangles! Oh my, the points were matched as well. In the pictures anyway. Despite the magazines and my desires to learn, the Beast and my sewing languished together.
Then, as time
encourages, things changed. My daughter
was born, the internet exploded and we
moved to Indiana. I actually forgot about the Beast! I wanted to sew for my
daughter, I wanted to make things (not quilts), I wanted skirts and shirts and
dresses in fabrics I enjoyed, I wanted to make garments for my husband, I
wanted to sew gifts for everyone I knew. Why…. I couldn’t stop thinking of all
the things I wanted to sew. I became a person serious about sewing. I know this
because I have an insane amount of fabric in my stash to prove it! And to
further fuel my sewing desires, information or tutorials on just about any sewing project
I could imagine was online just waiting there for me to use and learn.
Still, the Beast languished in the basement. Occasionally, I
would come across it while looking for fabric or reorganizing things. Until one
day, I actually took a long hard look at the Beast. Would I really finish it? Did
I even want to? The Beast reminded me of a time in my personal life that was
painful and in which I had made some poor choices. What was that big stain on
one side? The Beast still was huge and intimidating so I did the logical thing...
I threw the Beast away!! It is true. In the garbage it went. I didn’t even
think twice. It was liberating!
Oddly after the Beast was safely in the landfill, I started
looking at quilt patterns online! I would sometimes think about sewing a quilt
but quickly would dismiss the idea. Then, I happened upon the Indiana chapter
of
Quilts for Kids. Now, this was a quilt I could possibly master. A simple
square and 4 patch sewed together in a kid sized quilt. I ordered a quilt kit
to put together. My squares actually
matched up! I machine quilted the whole thing myself. I proudly put the quilt
in the mail back to Quilts for Kids and ordered two more kits which I have
almost completed.
That was 2013. For 2014 and in my new quilting enthusiasm I
signed up for a quilting sew-a-long called Goodnight Irene over at
Terry's Treasures.
It certainly looked simple
enough. A sixteen patch and a X block (whatever that was). But after getting started and cutting over 700
2 ½” squares, having to rip numerous seams, sewing some squares wrong sides
together, many of my corners not lining up and oh, those wretched triangles…I find myself once again thinking about the
Beast...
To be continued…..
