in a hurry = failed

 what do you do with a messed up quilt you were going to gift - donate it? that seems wrong somehow. if it's not good enough for me to gift, why would i donate it? that's just another form of gifting. but maybe if i pick my cause carefully, whoever receives a donated quilt will be a child who might not notice some really bad fmq. that's my thinking.

two weeks ago, i made a very pretty baby quilt top, that i was supposed to hand deliver while in florida last monday. i was sorely in love with the top, which was a very special quilt for a very special mother and baby (story later). those lottie da fabrics were simply scrumptious, absolutely dreamy to work with. do you ever have that experience - while cutting and sewing the fabrics you find yourself getting lost in the colors, cooing over the designs, smiling in a sappy way, thinking, "this is delicious!" it feels like eating dessert as you work . . . but it's fabric. yes, heather has done it again for me. lottie is that good! i was 100% happy with the top, which i completed by wednesday of the designated week i had for making it.

however, i completely ruined the top with some horrid fmq. and i do mean horrid. there is no one on the planet who can talk me out of that opinion. it still looked horrid the next day, although i admit not quite so completely, terribly horrid after a week away from it.

i was going to just straight-line the darling, but decided to do some wishbone quilting in the white strips. if i'd stopped there, i'd have been fine. alas, i did not stop there. somehow i reluctantly convinced myself there needed to be patterns in the colored strips, too. and that they should each be varied.

***disclaimer#1 - all the remaining photos are purposefully underexposed (dark) because i still haven't figured out how to get fmq to show up against white or patterns in a photograph.

***disclaimer#2 - i know that the photos don't show how really bad the quilting is. you're going to have to trust me. normally, i'm not that picky. i say leave it unless you absolutely can't live with the mess. this is one of those messes. truly, it's that bad! perhaps if it wasn't such a special quilt, i could have lived with it.

 my fmq skills consist of stipple, some if-y straight lining, and the wishbone. well, i was on a deadline and didn't want to practice first. couldn't, really. my over-confidence with my stippling went to my head and i decided it couldn't be that hard to just come up with some swirly, twirly, loopy designs as i went along. i didn't even bother to reference any of the 3 or 4 excellent books i own for ideas. nope. i just bulldozed ahead. the wishbones in the white sections went well enough. i'm getting pretty good with them. it was the improvised colored sections where i everything fell apart.

making well-curved, pretty loops and swirls is not as easy as i thought it would be. it's not just about doubling back on your stippling. and i ran out of ideas fast. the two spots where i knew i had made an irreversible mess were the pink strip below and the scrolls/swirls:

 on the pink, i started by just following the dots between the scroll bits, making a sort of zigzaggy pattern. this was okay until the pattern started shifting across the strip, which wasn't noticeable until i outlined it. about 2/3rds the way down, i flipped sides i was tracing, and tried to join up the two sections with going completely around three scrolls. this only resulted in some very poorly executed diamonds and one great big mess. this whole strip either needs to be unpicked or . . . i don't even know. there really isn't an option here. unpicking is required. painstaking unpicking for hours, i'm sure.

those scrolls/swirls in the other section above the pink are just plain ugly. they aren't even close to well shaped, consistent, or smooth. lumps everywhere, malformed points and curves. i'm sure even most men would notice. (men that don't quilt, of course. no offense to our stichin' brethren out there.)

so, here i am, with a failed quilt, humbled quilting self-confidence, hours of unpicking ahead of me, and most of my fabrics gone, while i'm fabric fasting, of course. dear liz got me out of the last conundrum. whilst i was crying across the oceans to her via email, she sent me this consolation, "Ps - of course you can get more lottie da. it's not new fabric, because it's like an insurance claim and merely replacing what you had :-)" my conscience has been soothed and replacements ordered. technically, this doesn't go against my personal clauses for the fast. but i was hoping to make it more than 20 days in before finding a "need" to purchase.

also, i had no quilt to deliver to my friend. being something of an idealist, i had it all worked out that it was simply perfect for me to take the completed quilt with me to florida and get pictures with lucy and the baby, too. letting go of that was hard. i was a bit of an emotional quilting wreck last saturday as i ran out of time before departure. liz and my mr helped me get over myself and put it all in perspective. i spent time with my kids instead of making corrections, left for my business vacation with a soothed conscience, and enjoyed it all despite the mess i'd created. turns out i couldn't meet up with lucy anyway, so now i can remake the quilt to perfection and mail it to her.

thank you, liz, for the shoulder to cry on and perfect blend of empathy and snap-out-of-it sound advice. quilting friends are the best! maybe when i get the replacement made i'll be able to guest post on your 10 super simple baby quilt series.