Rebecca’s Watercolor Quilt

Blessed are the children of the piecemakers,  for they shall inherit the quilts. 

But my daughter, a quilter in her own right, couldn’t wait that long.  She absconded with this one when she went away to college and it wasn’t missed until I spotted it hanging in her dorm room. She explained that she knew I wanted her to have it, and of course, she was right.

Later, it was displayed in her sorority house room, then in her first apartment and next in the first home she bought as a career girl.  Only now, as “Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady” (remember Barbra Streisand singing this in Funny Girl?), having moved into Harvey’s house,  has Rebecca relegated this little quilt to her cedar chest for lack of a properly barren wall.

I love to quilt.  When watercolor quilting hit the piecemakers’ world,  I was singing, “Getting to Know You,” (The King and I) eager to learn all about.  My dear friend Suzanne and I signed up for a workshop in North Carolina and waited in eager anticipation.  Well, actually, Suzanne waited.  I cut 2″ squares.  Thousands of them.  When we finally headed north, I had cutter’s cramp.

In their inspiring book, Watercolor Quilts, Pat Magaret and Donna Slusser suggested the use of large pizza boxes in which to stack 2″ squares.  I hurried on down to Pizza Hut and purchased 10 clean, new boxes.  Because a single piece of fabric can render a countless number of watercolor possibilities, I cut 20 squares from each of about 200 fabrics in order to assuage my fear of being caught short, lacking the perfect blendable square. I would be prepared.

I am a woman of excess and I admit it. I talk too much, eat too much, drive too fast and buy too much lace and fabric. Perhaps it is my fear of not having just the right piece for just the right place or project that is has caused the transformation of our 3-car garage into a no-room-for-cars garage, stuffed as it is with plastic bins of fabric.  I should stand up and announce to the world, “Hello, my name is Janice and I am a fabricholic.”  But it will take more than 12 steps to cure me.

Suzanne, however, is a woman of moderation.  She eats salads, travels light, chooses her words carefully, drives precisely at the speed limit and buys just enough fabric for her next project with a little extra, just in case.   She rolled her eyes as we packed clothes, sewing machines, sewing supplies and 10 large pizza boxes that must be stacked level, thank you very much, into her barely adequate Buick sedan. I knew we should have brought my mini van.

Today, those pizza boxes, minus 169 squares, are neatly stacked in my overflowing sewing room, serving now as a tribute to this quilt,  my single venture into the world of watercolor quilting.  Hope springs eternal that it will not be my last.  Frankly, I would like to have a watercolor quilt of my own.

This quilt was so much fun to make.  I enjoyed working with a flannel design wall, and plundering through my ten boxes of fabric squares.  I enjoyed, for the first time, using a different  fabric for the binding on each side. But the quilt is obviously a sophomoric attempt, evidenced by the absence of subtle gradations in several places, and, most notably,the harsh, dark lower right  corner which has no gradation at all.  What was I thinking?  Maybe if I’d had more 2″ squares to choose from…..

Have you ever made a watercolor quilt?  If so, please tell me about it.