Waiting for Sanity 49x48
This is my final quilt that will be heading to QuiltCon 2017 in Savannah. It all started during a workshop with Gwen Marston, Free Range Triangles, at the Stitchin' Post last April. If you click that link you'll see Gwen's quilt that inspired this one as well as in progress photos.
Here's what I wrote for the quilt description:
"Waiting for Sanity was begun in early 2016 during a class with Gwen Marston. The colors I used are some of my favorites with a naturally patriotic theme. As it turned out I didn’t get around to finishing this quilt until after the dreadful 2016 election when I was left with a feeling that sanity has gone out the window. The title is a direct reference to the liberated hourglass blocks."
I really love this quilt, but it will always be linked in my mind to the election. As we go further into the transition I can see that sanity will not return for quite a while, but this will always remain as a reminder for what happened this year.
When I tease out the election connection I can say that this is one of my most favorite quilts. I had so much fun making the liberated hourglass blocks. If you piece the squares you use to make them, they can be even more fun. You might end up with something as strange as a little tiny red triangle. Like in Gwen's quilt I sewed together several blocks at a time and put them with other sections. If they were too long I cut them off so there are places with wacked off blocks.
I love the places where one triangle in a block is bigger than the other one (see the large red block below). You might also get something that looks a little like a bowtie.
The quilt parts sat in the closet from April to November, when I got it out to finish the top. I decided I wanted to make it bigger so I added the large blocks around the outside. I decided to make it more neutral by leaving out the red. The top ended up being about 50" square and it shrank a little with quilting. As it turned out I didn't manage to get around to quilting it until the days after the election. I was still in shock and disbelief and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Often a title comes to me even before the quilt is made, or usually sometime during the piecing process. In this case I had nothing in mind, but this is what came to me while I was doing the narrow channel quilting. So, it's a patriotic quilt, which I always intended, but it marks a difficult year.
I hope that it is well received in Savannah, but as the theme suggests, time will tell.
