How do you start and finish a quilt?
The starting and finishing, for me, are the smoothest, simplest, most rewarding parts. It’s all that “messy middle” as someone wrote in an email this week, which catches me up.
Getting through the stitching and construction phase is where my persistence and stick-to-it-iveness have to kick in. I love to sew, but it helps me get to the end if I make the messy middle smaller by making wall hangings and sofa quilts instead of bed quilts!
I really do love to sew, but I get bored making the same block over and over again, although I love other people’s quilts that have lots of repeated blocks. Using a variety of fabrics in a quilt helps to keep me from getting bored. I use a variety of color schemes, try new techniques, and remind myself that I will get to hand stitch the binding, if I can just get that far.
My favorite part of quilting is choosing the fabrics. Since that only happens once per quilt, I can only choose fabrics so many times for myself. However, I can teach other quilters to learn and explore color and fabric principles, and guide them as they practice the process of choosing fabrics. Watching the results is so cool. That is so totally NOT boring to me.
So, why do YOU start and finish a quilt? What keeps you motivated? Here are a few ideas you can try to get you started, through the “messy middle” and done.
Ideas to keep you motivated to cross the finish line
Is it a gift with a deadline? Is the quilt you’ve always wanted for your own bed? Does your wall or table need some color and texture? Are you practicing a new technique? Maybe practicing hand or machine quilting?
Let’s unpack some ways to make it to the home stretch.
New Techniques
If you are a new quilter, you have many techniques to try, once you get your ¼” seam down. J Thankfully, even those of us who have been quilting for quite a while always have new techniques or a new ruler or an new embroidery machine to try, because there are amazingly inventive quilters out there thinking up brilliant ways to do the same task more easily or more accurately, and even developing new techniques or effects or tools that no one else has ever thought of.
So, taking on a new technique can be a great way to get to the end of a quilt. By the time you have practiced the technique or used the new tool all the way through the quilt, you will be mastering the process and will know whether you want to incorporate that process in your quilt practice going forward, or rather, set it aside and have it in your arsenal of resources for when you need it. And, you finished the quilt.
Focus on what you love to do
“Well, I simply love to quilt,” you might say. Yes! The act of quilting is a reward in and of itself. Not only do we get to stitch, whether by hand or machine, but we get to see patterns develop and designs form. It is such a creative endeavor, and fulfills that need in many of us to use our hands to make useful and beautiful things. “I simply love to quilt” could be the topic of a whole series of blog posts.
However, there are a couple parts of quilting that are just not my favorites. What about you? I’m guessing that we all have something that is tedious or frustrating – cutting, measuring, trimming, matching points, making mitered corners, piecing a back, something. There are lots of places where quilters can get caught in the “this is not my favorite part of quilting” trap and get stuck.
Don’t let that one part of the process make you just stop and give up. Devise a way to get through that part – motivate yourself to keep on moving. Look ahead to the next part that you love to do. Keep in mind the end product and how you envision it. If you can just get through this one section or process, you will be on to a part of making another quilt that you love and that feeds your soul.
Gifts for others and yourself
I think making gifts for others is one of the easiest ways to stay motivated throughout a long project. Imagining the look on the recipient’s face when they receive the gift is a really great motivator. As you work on the quilt and think about the recipient, you add your love and respect for the person into the work, which inevitably is reflected in the finished gift.
It also helps tremendously if the gift is for a specific event – birthday, holiday, graduation – because it gives you a deadline (discussed in the next section).
Is the quilt just for you? Maybe you want a new holiday table runner or you need a spark of color in your living room, or perhaps you just have to try this color combination, so you’ve decided to make a quilt. These are great motivations for starting a quilt. To help you finish? Hold onto the vision you have for the quilt and what it will do for the room and how you will feel when it is completed and displayed.
Making quilts for ourselves is important and necessary. Getting them done is not always easy. Other things in life can so easily get in the way. Keep your vision in mind.
Deadlines
Deadlines! One of my best motivators, for sure.
Often, a gift has a deadline. Perfect – once you’ve decided to make the quilt, you only have a certain length of time in which to complete it. Love the process, and charge forward through your not-so-favorite parts, and make someone very happy.
Other deadlines could be completing the quilt for a guild quilt show or a contest. In the past few years, most of my wall hanging pieces have been completed for a juried exhibit each summer. Recently, my husband suggested that I find another exhibit deadline in the winter, so maybe I could create two quilts a year. Hmmm. Smart.
You can also create your own deadlines. Besides the “I have to finish this section so that I can get to do the next part that I love to do” motivation, as discussed above, there is also the carrot and reward angle. “If I finish this section now, then I can spend the whole afternoon tomorrow gardening/reading/watching a movie/playing with the grandchildren/hiking.” And then, you’ll be refreshed and ready to come back and get to work on the next part that you love to do!
Or is it getting started?
On the other hand, maybe your situation isn’t getting to the finish line, it’s actually getting started. Does choosing the “right” fabrics scare you? Or do you wish you could make fabric choices with more confidence or even just have a rationalization for why you think that a group of fabrics works well together – or doesn’t?
This is where I can help. I am working on a book titled Conquering Color and Fabric, which of course is taking much longer than I had anticipated. It will stand on its own and as the workbook for my upcoming online course.
However, in the meantime, make sure you have joined my email list and check out my other blog posts, and like my page on Facebook.
Wrapping up (in that finished quilt!)
I started a bed quilt for my oldest daughter for a high school graduation present, and finally gave it to her when she completed her master’s degree. I just couldn’t make any more blocks, even though I had cut all the strips necessary. So, I changed up the layout to use fewer blocks, added an extra border using a variety of those extra strips I had cut, and finished it. It still ended up only large enough to be a topper for a full-size bed, but it got done!
(Final tip: sometimes, finding a shortcut or adapting the project to a small size can help one to complete it and have a sense of accomplishment!)
What I do love about that quilt, though, is the fabrics I chose for it. They remind me of my daughter. Deep colors with sparks of brighter ones throughout. She loved lime green for a time growing up, and that is present along with more “grown up” colors, in block designs that are fairly straightforward, made more complicated by the fabrics and values chosen.
As you can see, my motivation for quilting is that I get to choose fabrics for my projects. Totally my favorite part. Too bad that it’s at the beginning of the quiltmaking process, but at least it motivates me to finish the quilt so I can choose fabrics for my next one!
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What keeps you going? I know we all have UFOs (unfinished objects…), but I’m sure you have finished quilts that you have started. What motivates you to start, keep going and to finish it? I would love it if you add a comment below to share how you stay motivated to finish your quilts.