The Good Life Quilt - my road to recover some space on my shelves.
- Riverport Quilting
- Jan 9
- 3 min read
Oh, The Good Life! Didn't someone sing a song about that once?
Customers often tell me that they've had their patchwork tops (flimsies) finished for years and "It's just been sitting in a pile!" Well, let me tell you - I'm just the same, despite running a longarm business, it can take me a good few years to get round to quilting my patchwork tops.
However, all this has to stop!
So, in an effort to get rid of at least some of my 40+ quilt kits and other bits of fabric, I have set myself the task of making at least 4 quilts from the kits and 2 from my stash. Argh, this seems hugely ambitious, considering I only managed to finish 4 quilts last year and they had all been started many years before. If I'm feeling mildly paniced now (only a memory quilt to make for a customer, so I'm not busy work wise) I dread to think how I will feel when I do get more work in. Work, of course is not always a smooth event and while generally quiet during winter (I suppose people are making the aforementioned patchwork tops) it can lurch rather dramatically during the rest of the year.
Enough of my rambling. The Good Life Quilt was originally from a quilt-a-long with Angela Walters when she worked with Craftsy/myBluprint on the Midnight Quilt Show.
After the what seemed like endless cutting out I started timing how long it took to make each block. 45 minutes each was the average, I did get a little faster over time as I had decided that if I was going to manage to make 49 blocks it wasn't going to be all in one go. I know me, and short and regular is way more likely to get it finished. To ensure that I did get them completed I gave myself the task of making one each evening and then posting it on Instagram. Do have a look at #riverportquilting if you get the chance. Between 26th Sept 2019 and 6th Jan 2020 I made and posted 48 blocks. Why I didn't make 49, I don't know. I wish I had, it might have meant I didn't lose 7 of them and have to make another 8. I have since found the original 7 and now have to decide what to do with them. Apart from cushion covers or pillow cases I'm not sure. Leave me a comment if you have any ideas.
A selection of the Goose Track Blocks for the Good Life Quilt
The seven new blocks weren't made until I was putting it all together, so I didn't post them on social media. But last winter, end of Feb I finished up the quilt.
I had a bit of a struggle with how to quilt it. I had wanted to do some free-motion quilting on it - most customers want something quick and cheap, so I don't get to play very much. But the blocks themselves are too busy for quilting to really show and it seemed a shame to put in wool wadding if it wasn't going to show the texture. Yeah, I could have done something more complicated in the spaces between the blocks, but it's quite a weird shape and a distorted patchwork pattern would irritate me so I just did a digital pattern called Leafy swirls by Darlene Epp. Plus, how am I going to get though all these quilt kits if I spend all my time quilting.
The Good Life Quilt designed by Callie Works-Leary.
You know the best bit about completing this quilt? I have realised that it's producing a never ending stock of spare fabric. In fact this quilt kit actually left so much spare fabric, I can make a whole new quilt - yeah maybe not 93 inches on each side, but still a fairly sizable quilt. Better yet there's enough backing for the new quilt.
So, did it manage to give me that space on my shelves? Yes, there was a gap for about 5 minutes before I filled it with more fabric. This quilt is now going to be gifted to a well deserving friend. See you when I've completed the next one.
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