There's a saying in the quilting world: If you can't see the mistake in a quilt from the back of a galloping horse, it's not a mistake that matters. For this quilt, if you happen to be passing on horseback, all I can say is I hope your three-year-old's turbo-charged. Hopped up on performance-enhancing hay. And riding on an Acme rocket sled. And blind, because if he sees these colors he'll be so startled he'll throw you. He'll throw you RIGHT ONTO THIS QUILT, and, trust me, you don't want that.
This is another Warm Wishes quilt. Many Christmases ago, my mother gave me an assortment of great Kaffe Fassett prints. Apparently she also slipped some crack into my Christmas nog, because I decided to use them all in the same quilt, which resulted in a Technicolor mess. Some Fassett prints — many Fassett prints — go very well together in profusion, even in color combinations that don't immediately seem felicitous. This assortment is not among them.
No, really.
I was sort of appalled once it was all pieced, but decided to forge ahead anyway. I'd just gotten my MegaQuilter, so I loaded up the top and went to town. I made every mistake it's possible to make using a frame quilter, from using shiny rayon thread that shredded every three inches — didn't know to use a topstitch needle — to moving so fast that every curve on the back had eyelashes and big thready loops. In plenty of places, the quilting just...stops, with no anchoring of the thread at either end. Plus, since I'd had no practice, my free motion was waaaay too free; in this case freedom was just another word for OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL AM I DOIIIIINGGGG? The quilting was truly a mess. And so I did what any self-respecting fiber artist would do. I shoved it into a closet for three years and shuddered every time I caught a glimpse of it.
But I've been meaning to bring it into some semblance of completion, even if only as a picnic quilt or a cat bed or something to sop up the basement floor when the sewer pump conks out. So I finally repaired (some of) the quilting, slapped on the quickest, dirtiest machine binding at my disposal...
...And called it finished. And ugly, and so badly done, but finished.
