Beginner Quilting Class: Quilting Is Much Like Sports!!

I bet ya' did not see that one coming did you??? There was no quilt class this week, the last class is the show and tell class and it is next week. I decided I wanted to finish up this quilt top and be done and all ready for class next week and not be stressed. Yea, like that happened. Not. I did finish up the top, but it was not without mishap.

Now, back to the post title. As I worked on finishing the quilt top this week, it occurred to me, that quilting is very much like sports. If you are confused....I'll tell you how I came to this conclusion...it all happened when I was having the worse day of quilting yet.....seriously, that day, I never wanted to see this quilt again. Ever.

Quilting is very much like Football....if the players are not lined up just right, the officials call off-sides and the play is stopped. If your rows are not lined up just right in quilting, well, you are stopped in your tracks and have to rip seams out, and start again. You know, I never really cared much for football.



Quilting is very much like Soccer......Some get a kick out of quilting, others not so much. Soccer is a high energy sport, draining you once the game is over. Quilting is much like that, with all the measuring, cutting of fabric, measuring again, you can feel drained once you have finished this step of the process. You know, I never really liked soccer all that much but I am now, running to the fabric store for more fabrics to start a new quilting project. Like soccer, some steps may be draining, but I am getting a kick out of doing it.


Quilting is very much like Basketball....the players run back and forth down a court sweating buckets of sweat trying to make the right plays. In quilting, part of the process is the ironing, and that causes me to sweat buckets. It is hot and you can work up a sweat gliding that steaming iron down the ironing board trying to press the seams just right. You know, I never really cared for basketball..and still don't.


Quilting is very much like Golf....The oldies are still the goodies. The great golf legends like Nicholson and Hogan are hard to beat. In quilting, the vintage designs and vintage fabrics are much like the old golf legends, very hard to replace in today's world. You know, I have never played golf, but I do enjoy vintage designs. And those vintage designs and fabrics put a swing in my step!


Quilting is very much like Track.....or more specifically, like the track star who works and works, rounds the last bend and stumbles and gets passed up at the finish line. In quilting, that is how I felt this week...almost done with the very last row of stitching, I could see myself coming around the bend to the finish line...guess what? My bobbin ran out.....yep, I felt like a track star!


Quilting is very much like Tennis.....you need more than one player to play the game and the word Love is in the scoring. In quilting, you need more than one person to successfully help you hold your quilt top up before you can take a picture of the finished product. That's right, Love is the key to scoring a perfect shot with the camera...love my team players and the sacrifice and sore arm muscles it took for me to take a perfect picture. You know, I have always enjoyed tennis...maybe because of the love part and the partners you play the game with.


Yes, I have decided quilting is very much like sports...You set your mind on a goal, strive to achieve your goal, make mistakes along the way, realize practice makes perfect and in the end, feel like an Olympic champion with your accomplishments when you reach the finish line. So the next time someone says I'm not athletic or don't like sports...I'm going to tell them of course I'm athletic...I quilt!!


Well, this is the finished top and I made a few changes along the way..

~~The nine patches in the corners should not have been there. I did not want to make any more rail fence blocks, so I substituted the nine patches which I already had made. No telling what Leo will say, because he told me to finish off with the rail fence....Well, it did not happen.....
~~The small border was supposed to be green, not blue. In fact, I had already purchased the green fabric, but I really did not like the way it looked once the top was finished so I purchased the blue instead. I like it much better.
~~The first picture that shows things not lining up, is just the reality of it. I was so tired of ripping out and starting over I just left it alone. This is really the worse of the blocks not lining up. In fact, most all do line up fine but about 8 blocks, I decided I could live with it, I was not going to rip anything else out. Now, I just need to figure out how to correct this with the nine patch and snowball blocks.
~~The biggest challenge of all was the fact I insisted on enlarging this quilt from full size to king size to fit our bed. Boy, did I make some dumb mistakes along the way, but I know what not to do next time. I can not even believe I thought I could do this with no problems....sometimes my goals are much higher than my abilities.

I guess next week we will discuss the finishing class. I don't know if I am going to quilt this myself or not. I may hire someone to quilt it and finish it for me. Can you tell, I am tired tonight, and the thought of messing up with the quilting part of it and having to rip out is more than I can even think about...we will just see.....next week. Really the size of this is hard to work with and to think my very first quilt is this large and trying to quilt too, I just don't know about that.
Any suggestions from you guys on the colors for the back fabric and binding? What do you think about the nine patch blocks in the corner? Does it look OK like that? Of course, it's a little late to be asking your opinions.....at least on the nine patch blocks in the corners.

Next week, in class I am going to take pictures of the different quilts the other ladies made. I would really like to show you the different looks with the same quilt design using very different fabrics. It really is amazing to see.