Onward!

Ever had a project you had to make that you couldn’t get going on because you were bored with it before you started it? 

And it’s not an awful thing—this is the secret project I mentioned starting a few blog posts back. A few weeks ago, it was in limbo. 

So I mentioned in that post that I was thinking of proceeding on a different path and only for the purpose of making it easier. I should say there is nothing hard about this project, it’s more about being bored with it right out of the gate. The fabrics are black, white and gray (or silver). I had so much fun buying the fabric but when I’m looking at them on my table I just go…meh. And I realized this when sitting at my sewing table trying to drum up excitement for this quilt. I’ve had so much fun over the last couple of years swimming in lots of color, and seeing those blacks, whites and grays…well, you get the idea. 

I was talking to Cindy about it and she asked how long it would take me to complete it, and was there something else I would rather work on and then move on to this one. Well, sure…almost any other NESTY waiting to be consumed. 

But…I have made a commitment to finishing what I’ve started without working on something else in between, and I do have a deadline. After my call with Cindy, I had a lightbulb moment and came up with Plan B and, just in case, Plan C. 

Now, when I talked about this project before, I mentioned it was a secret project. It still is. I can’t reveal anything and maybe stating the colors was too much. But I’ll try to talk about my process without oversharing. 

I’m doing the majority of this quilt in a tiled, or mosaic-ish style. I placed a diagonal grid over the image I’m working from. There is a bit of appliqué, but not a lot…but some teeny, tiny pieces that when I cut them out on my ScanNCut, the Hubs asked, “How is that going to stay on the quilt?” And I said, “I believe I will digitize and machine embroider those pieces.” Now that I have a better idea of where I’m going with this, this project has now become a fun one. 

In the last four months I have learned a lot about digitizing to create SVG and embroidery files, scanning an image and fine-tuning it in Brother Canvas Workspace, and I’ll tell you that it’s been wonders for the creative side of my brain. I have ideas bouncing around in my head, and I need to write them down (or note them in my phone) so I can have some more fun seeing if they come out like I think they could. 

All of that said, I went with Plan D (which is more closely aligned with Plan A) on the special project. Most of my projects start with a somewhat vague idea of how I want it to play out, but in my process I can learn and find other ways to complete the project that either is (a) faster or (b) I just like it better. Happens to most of us, right? 

To sum up, I am no longer bored. The backing fabric arrived Saturday morning while I was working on the label. I had the backing pieced and the label applied by Saturday afternoon. As far as quilting goes, I’m keeping it simple with an edge-to-edge design from Designs by Juju. I started quilting it Sunday afternoon and hope it will be done by the end of the week. The binding is ready to go. 

And please, I beg of you--if you figure out what this is going to be, let's keep this our little secret. I greatly appreciate it.

More to discuss soon (about digitizing!), and enjoy the teaser photos. In the meantime, go make!