When You Don’t Love Your Mystery Quilt
I love Quiltmania. I especially love their mystery quilts. My first mystery quilt, was Mountmellick, a Di Ford quilt. In fact, I saw this quilt, and knew, that I needed to do applique. Six years later, I am still doing applique, and I still eagerly await Quiltmania’s mystery quilts.
In 2018, Quiltmania announced their next mystery quilt would be designed by the incomparable Jen Kingwell of Australia. I love her quilts, I have three of them on my bucket list (Spindrift, Queen’s Cross, and My Small World). I signed up for Marshall, the new mystery quilt, started getting the fabrics and pattern, and have really enjoyed making it.
Then October/November came, and I saw the finished quilt. I liked it, but didn’t love it. What to do. When the decisionmaking gets hard, and it is time to do some procrastinating, I frequently turn to Electric Quilt design software. I love playing around in EQ7 (I haven’t upgraded, but that might be another project for #socialdistancing). Here are two variations that I designed.
My favorite of the two is Marshall in Sunshine, but it would require me to hand piece more of the half circles. Right now, I really don’t feel like prepping all the tiny pieces (I need to make eight more half circles for this version). Using acrylic templates, I have to trace each shape, then draw the sewing lines with pencil on the wrong side of the fabric. Then cut each piece out. I find it a tedious process.
To procrastinate a bit more, I went back to Quiltmania and EQ7. I pulled out the very first issue I bought that happened to have another Jen Kingwell quilt, Midnight at the Oasis. It is a medallion quilt with courthouse step blocks. So, I’m thinking, maybe I’ll combine the two. Back to EQ and Marshall at Midnight is born. I will needle-turn appliqué the light gray border with the orange peel corner blocks. Some of you may be thinking, “but you have to do applique to finish it”. Time consuming, but not as tedious, at least to me! The verdict is still out because sometimes it is just easier to start a new quilt (see my blog post about my Ruby May variation).
Has anybody else not loved their mystery quilt? What did you do? Finish it, redesign it, banish it to UFO world, donate/throw it away?