Years and years and years ago, I loved these tulip blocks. I envisioned an entire quilt of these tulip blocks….as you can see, it never happened.
Being the mom to our five kids took priority and these five blocks got shuffled to the back of my closet.
When I was cleaning in the spring of ’08 I found the blocks. My kids were older and I had a more time to quilt. I had decided to purchase my Pfaff Grand Quilter and Next Generation quilting frame. I need some things to practice quilting on so I pulled the old tulip blocks out and quickly sewed them together not paying careful attention at all….I figured the quilt could just be donated somewhere as I was not longer “in love” with the tulip blocks.
Well it was my first try quilting and I ended up with this….
YUCK! I didn’t know how to set the tension or the speed. I didn’t realize that I was leaving big globs of thread when I stopped and started…it was definitely a learning experience. But now..those Tulip Blocks were worse than they ever were…I couldn’t donate that mess to anyone. The quilt got stuck in the back of the closet AGAIN.
Fast forward to about three weeks ago. I need something to hang outside on the quilt rack. The winter quilt just wasn’t right for the season so I dug in the closet and there was the poorly constructed tulip quilt…I figured, what the heck. I put it outside because I didn’t care about it anyway. It would be no big deal if it faded.
In the short couple weeks, I have gotten more compliments on that tulip quilt than I ever imagined. No one notices all of my mistakes. When people walk up the sidewalk, they see those big red welcoming tulips. The design is VERY simple but that’s what makes it work for an outside quilt.
The quilt has taught me several things….
Lesson One: Don’t be so critical about my quilting.
Lesson Two: Not all of my friends are quilters and they don’t notice every mistake….and my quilter friends would rather see a botched quilt and know I learned something than to not see a quilt at all….right???? (Please say yes!)
We are our own worse critics….I think you did a fab job!
Nobody except you will notice those mistakes. How nice to have it displayed after all this time and know people are enjoying it!
Isn’t it funny how we are always hardest on ourselves??
I know I always see my own mistakes, staring right back at me! But as you said, to other people it looks pretty good :)
I love your tulips! Great job :)
SheilaC