Coins and Baskets a Good Journey Toward Completed Quilt Top

Once I changed direction with this quilt project, then it started going together like a well oiled machine. It finally dawned on me that these colors feel completely comfortable to me. It used to be my safe zone for so many years and so there is almost zero drama involved in the process. {Or challenge or real inspiration}  Aha! That's what I thought initially, but then had to reconsider by the end.

The middle part of Coins & Baskets

My daughter refers to this quilt as one of 'my old lady quilts'. I'd prefer to call it the antique influence or a cozy, homey look. But yes, I'll admit to drifting away from these colors for quite some time now and starting to embrace the lighter, more colorful palette my daughters prefer. Quilters do have the option of evolving and growing you know and part of that is reverting back {on purpose} when desired. It's always an interesting exercise because it feels like going straight back to our roots--often our comfort zone. And that's a simple place to easily make comparison within the basics and perimeters of our process.

As I've mentioned before, the coin sashing was cut and sewn together very improv. style {a relatively new-to-me process} and then carefully cut into the proper measurements required to make a 3-row wide block of  6" x 8" sashing. The original plan was a dud, color-wise, and so the project ended up being split into two quilt tops. It just couldn't seem to be resolved with the combined elements previously proposed. These baskets seemed like a no-brainer with these particular sashing colors, and so the quilt evolved. A basket pattern was drawn from a quilt in 'Treasures From The Barn' book by Linda Collins. It had to be made larger to fit in with my quilt plan and also the handle was changed to make it wider. Why not if that's what I prefer!

Adding on an outside border

When I started sewing the quilt layout together, I ended up taking out some of the extra coin sashing blocks that would have enclosed every basket block, sort of stripping down the busyness of the quilt {see the first picture}. It happened almost without conscious thought {actually, quite a few of the design decisions did}, which was quite interesting. Normally I spend some serious time making a decision like that, but this time I was just doing. Then once the process was fully realized, I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and continued on.

With this part of the quilt sewn together, I could have quite easily folded it up and called it a finish. Very cute and it feels pulled together in all the important ways. But.... you know me. The quilt was too small {52" X 71"} which totally annoyed me. I get irritated at little quilts that force us to decided if we want our torso covered or perhaps our toes? And also, there was approx. 25 coin sashing units left which really bothered me. What a waste!

Coins & Baskets a finished quilt top

It was quickly determined to add the extra coin sashing blocks on as an outside border. Perhaps not the best design decision, but I personally love how that imperfect border looks. It looks especially wonderful to me close up, such as how we would view it if perhaps the quilt was 'in-use' and laying across our laps. Working with coins was the original challenge {later amended with Kaja's challenge to combine with a second block} and it felt right to include the leftover blocks. This felt important, trying to include all the coin sashing without wasting or abandoning them. Sort of a nod to the old utility style of quilts that I love.

The border just makes me happy

While not a fabulous or particularly exciting quilt top, this one feels like a rather good finish. It has definitely served its purpose in underlining some basic things about my quilting process. While working practically on auto-pilot through much of the decision making, I later realized how incredible that actually is. Not obvious to anyone but me, the single most interesting thing about this entire project was how working with these specific colors felt like slipping on well-worn shoes. Other design decisions seemed far less complicated in the immediate comparison. Ding, ding! I needed that realization as I so often tend to over-think and complicate matters.

Am I making sense at all? The final result in regards to this quilt is this: I'm quite happy with the antique mood of the fabrics and elements mixed into the quilt. The make-do look to the stacked coins in the border just make me inexplicably happy which gives me permission to leave the quilt  'as-is' rather than removing the outside border like some might think would be necessary. It might not be perfectly balanced, perhaps it doesn't make sense to others or it might even be considered a dull looking quilt now that I've inserted the rest of the coins. That doesn't matter because quilts down the line will no doubt be the better for this little exercise. I needed to see this border to understand.

We need to continue to emphasize making for our own pleasure and knowledge--let the process take us to the next level in its own sweet time. There's no shame in adding another 'learning and growing' quilt top to the stack and in fact it could be considered a positive thing. There will be many of these before we make that rare fabulous quilt and then many more mistakes, learning and challenges met before the next great quilt. I'm determined to show my struggles along with my successes, record them along the way. How about you?

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