A Quilt With A Mind Of Its Own

My interest in modern  quilting has done more than just swell my stash with solids and modern prints. I’m now pretty much ruined for using quilt patterns (or kits, for that matter). At least that’s what I found out when I recently made a wedding quilt to celebrate the marriage of our eldest daughter, Synge, to her sweetheart, Chris.

With this happy day in mind, I had been holding onto a kit from a local shop using Lotta Jansdotter’s Bella collection, and was planning to follow the kit’s modern Log Cabin variation (a freebie from the fabric manufacturer). Then I realized the shop had re-calculated the freebie pattern to make it more economical for kitting, but it read like some weird coded message. I couldn’t understand the new pattern! Now, I’m a lifelong sewist–and even have a few Vogue Originals garments to my credit–but as a quilter of only a few years, this pattern was unintelligible. And the  wedding was only two months away, so I  had little time for schlepping into the shop to get schooled.

(And frankly, I was just annoyed. Patterns don’t need to be written in some elitist q-dialect that only super-experienced quilters can read. Geez!)

So, I began thinking about other designs that have captured my interest, and I remembered Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle’s Party of Four, which I saw during Spring Market in Portland a few months ago. In that design,  four-patch blocks are floating in narrow interior sashing, with larger sashing on the edges. Cool sophistication…eExactly the thing for the bridal couple! (Did I mention they’re both actors in NYC? Working, too.)

Inspired by–but not exactly following–Party of Four, I chopped up the kit fabrics into 5-inch squares and played around on the design wall. Big snooze! I loved Bella’s teal/orange/charcoal/white palette, but it lacked a certain excitement. A quick stash plow yielded prints from V and Co. and Kate Spain, which added some much-needed energy. (Well, I guess I’m evolving into a no-kit quilter, too.)

While arranging the last row of blocks and the white sashing, though, I hit another snoozer moment. The sophisticated parade of blocks needed a jolt of the unexpected to  shake up the order. Enlarging the sashing with improv piecing, I popped that last block out, giving the top the final zing I was craving. Yes. Oh, yes!

Synge and Chris' wedding quilt. (Quilting by Kathryn Fuller of Catamount Quilting, Tijeras, NM)

If I’d slavishly followed a pattern or used only the fabrics in the kit, the quilt would have looked fine, but I’d never have had the satisfaction of letting this quilt assemble itself. And I know so many other modern quilters who are also now spoiled for kits and patterns.

What about you? Do you follow patterns to the letter, or use kits as they’ve been assembled? Have you had a quilt that seemed to follow its own path to completion, ignoring your plans?

Epilogue:

The wedding quilt was a big hit, with dropped jaws, exclamations and tears. “It’s so them! the maid-of-honor exclaimed. Sigh.