the careless quilter

The idea of careless quilting is to “design as you go.” No pattern, no plan. It turns out that it is not as easy as it sounds.

In my piles, I had some Kaffe Fassett fabrics that intrigued me. Then I found some colorful bits that looked good with them and starting stitching pieces together. Pretty soon, everything was out of control.

I realized that I wasn’t going to be happy if I kept proceeding helter skelter. So I ripped my seams apart, gave some thought to what I wanted to accomplish and proceeded again.

You can see in the picture above that I made some notes to myself with a sketch. So far I have pieced together a 16-inch square. It will be the jewel-like center of a baby boy quilt.

I intend to make four more 16-inch squares that will become the corners. Then I will fill in the rest of the quilt top with Chinese Coins—strips of different fabrics in a random pattern.

Although I now have a concept, there are many decisions left—such as working out the fabric and color combination of the final parts. It is this type of challenge that confirms to me that quilt making is truly a creative activity.