Content Warning: Miscarriage
This started out as a cute story that was mostly about quilts but also a little about my personal life. Unfortunately, the cute personal life story turned into a terrible personal life story. I don't want to inflict a terrible story on people who would find it upsetting. But most of this was written while it was still a cute story, and the cute story is pretty integral to why I ended up making these quilts. So, if you'd like to opt out of the terrible story and just read about some quilts that I made, check the checkbox below.
Skip the terribleness and just read about quilts
It's done!
Our guest room had one bright purple wall, and a ratty comforter on the bed that I think I inherited from one of my housemates when I was in college. I am a beginner quilter but I thought I was about ready to tackle something big.
A timeline:
Early April, 2014: Start collecting purple fabrics. Find an online Logo interpreter and write some code to draw quilts made out of identical blocks. Find the Pineapple Blossom pattern and determine that it is both simple enough to be easy to make many many blocks, and complicated enough to hold my interest while making many many blocks. Write more code so I can get an idea of what my purple pineapple blossom quilt would look like. Show several options of logo-generated quilts to my husband, since he will be sleeping under this forever too. He signs off on Pineapple Blossom.
Late April: Discover that my stash is not nearly big enough to support a scrappy queen-sized quilt. Persevere anyway. Start building reputation as That Crazy Purple Woman at Cambridge Quilt Shop.
4/14: First block done!
4/15: Discover bug in first block. Curse a lot. Fix it. Also accept that of the light purples in it, 2 actually read as dark, and 2 are just too gray to be used in this quilt, despite the fact that they were the closest to light purple I could find in my local quilt shop. Curse more.
4/20: 10 blocks done, of a speculated 63.
4/27: 16 blocks done.
5/18: Nasty horseback riding accident. Spend a week on the couch on hard-core pain medication. Working on quilt is too hard/painful/uncomfortable for about 2 months.
5/23-6/3: Go to Hawaii on vacation. Find amazing quilt shop (Kapaia Stitchery, Lihue, Kauai) more than 5,000 miles from where I live. Bring back more purple fabric.
7/24: 32 blocks done. As originally calculated I am now half done the blocks!
8/23: 52 blocks done. Since our new refrigerator is 1/4" too wide to fit through the door of our kitchen, but the old refrigerator has already been hauled away, there is this big open space in the kitchen where I can experiment with laying out the existing blocks. Begin to suspect that 9x7 blocks and the duvet we already have will be too small and 9x8 is probably a better idea. More cursing.
8/26: Pay Gentle Giant $250 to pick up our new fridge, shove it through the pass through from the dining room to the kitchen, and put it back down.
9/14: How on earth do I have so many strips cut, none of which seem to be acceptable for the last few blocks??? Start planning baby quilt to help use up leftover purple. The whole reason I am making the big purple quilt (duvet cover, really) is that we're hoping to have a baby soon, and when we do, we'll move to the bedroom with the bright purple wall. And wouldn't it be cute if our kid had a quilt that was made of scraps from the one we sleep under every night? Post a preliminary picture to Facebook, with hidden-meaning comment "probably a baby quilt for someone whose parents like purple." Several friends who either have very young babies or are pregnant point out that they quite like purple.
9/22-9/26: While husband is away, move most furniture out of the living room (the only place in our house where I can lay out all the blocks) and attempt to find a layout of the 72 blocks that matches my constraints -- I want each light or dark "diamond" to not use the same fabric more than once. Fail to finish this task before Chris gets home from his trip. After most of the week, suck it up and write a computer program to lay out the quilt for me. This requires first coming up with unique names for the 70 different purple fabrics in this quilt. Actually have the revelation "Wait, I don't have to be smart, I have a computer!" Computer program takes a minute or two to check ~3 million layouts before finding one that works. Be grateful for modern technology. Since this is the second time I have had to do this, resolve to, in future, always assume that I'm going to have to write code for layout, and start doing the appropriate record keeping at the beginning. Each block is assigned a number, and my program spits out the final layout:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
-------------------------------------
_________________________________
| | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ |
0 | 13 |68 |29 | 7 |63 |32 |60 |45 |
| |/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|
| |\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|
1 | |64 |21 |49 |31 |55 | 1 |70 |34 |
| |__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|
| | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ |
2 | |54 |43 |57 |41 |46 |33 |69 |27 |
| |/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|
| |\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|
3 | | 4 |11 |36 |52 |24 |56 |14 |47 |
| |__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|
| | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ |
4 | |42 |19 |15 |71 | 9 |22 |50 |26 |
| |/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|
| |\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|
5 | |18 |62 | 3 |25 | 6 |44 |20 |23 |
| |__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|
| | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ |
6 | |10 |39 |17 | 0 | 8 |48 |51 |12 |
| |/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|
| |\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|
7 | |53 |59 | 5 |35 |58 |65 |67 |40 |
| |__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|
| | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ | /|\ |
8 | |66 |38 |28 |61 | 2 |37 |30 |16 |
| |/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|/__|__\|
Early October: make most of baby quilt top. It still needs borders. Wonder what to do with the scraps leftover from the little project I'm doing to get rid of the scraps from my big project.
10/16-10/25: With Chris away again, move all the living room furniture, lay out blocks in their final configuration, add sashing that doesn't duplicate any fabrics in each diamond, and frantically piece the blocks together (how is Web the Top not a square dance call??) while binge-watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix.
Late October: sign up for Cambridge Quilt Shop's block of the month. Choose the batik colorway because I need to work on something not monochromatic. Revel in the fact that my blocks are not purple.
11/8: Accept that there are no standard sizes for duvets. Commit to one common-ish size by buying one.
Early November: start piecing borders out of the leftover bits cut off from the corners of each block. Get pretty frustrated because they are more irregular than I wish they were.
11/21-11/23: Spend most of a square dance weekend inexplicably tired, squaring up almost 300 corner artifacts instead of dancing. Also, discover that I'm pregnant. Baby quilt now has a recipient.
Early December: Spend lots of time trying to get ahold of very wide black fabric for the back and borders. Sew one black inner border on (a 7-foot seam). Realize that that fabric is not as wide as advertised and doesn't actually match the fabric I have located that is wide enough. Become cranky and disillusioned.
12/6: Have first ultrasound and discover that we are having twins. Have momentary freakout: OH CRAP DO I NEED TO MAKE A SECOND PURPLE BABY QUILT NOW?? Wonder if I will actually have time to finish the big quilt and the baby quilt, in addition to all of the preparations we will need to do before next summer. Friends suggest making a very simple second baby quilt. I am hesitant to do so because I want the two baby quilts to be about the same degree of difficulty. Wonder if this is merely the first in a long long series of times where I don't do as good a job as I'd like because I have two small children.
December 2014, January 2015: Totally wiped out by first-trimester fatigue. Come home from work every day and immediately curl up in bed with ipad and continue binge-watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix. Completely intimidated by the thought of having to finish the quilts.
1/23: Go to craft night. Rip out ill-fated 7-foot seam and wrestle with very large piece of black fabric to compute how I will get borders and a back out of it.
February 2015: Out of Gilmore Girls. Guess I'd better work on the quilts again. Unclear on whether I actually have more energy now that I'm into the 2nd trimester, or it's just the placebo effect. Decide I don't really care.
2/1-2/7: Decide on final border. Lay out leftover squares and attempt to arrange them so they are not near squares that use the same fabrics. Measure the top VERY VERY CAREFULLY so I can compute how wide the inner border should be so that the leftover squares will line up at the corners. Attach inner borders, colored borders, and outer borders. Gigantic purple quilt top is finished!!
2/12-2/16: Thanks to a blizzard, a cold snap and a miserable head cold over a long weekend (including my birthday), piece a second baby quilt top in less than a week. This requires some careful calculation of what fabrics I can use for which layers of a trip around the world. But it is great for busting scraps. Discover that I don't actually have enough leftover corner artifacts from the big quilt to put a matching border on both baby quilts. Oh well.
2/21: Take completed huge quilt top and two baby quilt tops to block-of-the-month meeting for show and tell at my local quilt shop -- picture is at the top of this page. Explain why I've made two baby quilts -- at 17 weeks, I don't look pregnant yet, only a little lumpy. Receive a lot of good wishes and advice.
2/22-2/27: Actually quilt the chevron baby quilt. I haven't done much quilting and so this is intimidating for me. Stitch in the ditch on every other edge. Badly.
2/28-3/1: Discover that while I do have a giant pile of purple fabric left over from this mammouth project, I only have one dark fabric with enough left to get a binding out of. Feel irrationally proud. Attempt to bind chevron baby quilt. Fail miserably at catching back edge of binding while topstitching from the top. Curse a lot. Give up.
3/3: Feel someone move for the first time!
3/5: Have fetal survey ultrasound, at the halfway point in my pregnancy. Both babies are big for their age, perfectly formed, healthy, and moving a lot (and kicking each other). At the end of our survey ultrasound, get told that I am in very early labor and that the twins will be born within a few days, well before viability. My water breaks about an hour later, and we rush to the hospital. Twin A is born at 2:17pm on Thursday, March 5th, 2015. He is 8.5" long and weighs 8.9 oz. He has Chris's nose.
3/6: Twin B is born at 2:04pm on Friday, March 6th, 2015, with her amniotic sac still intact. She is 9" long and weighs 9.4 oz. The picture of my giant purple quilt top, taken at block of the month's show and tell, is one of the last pictures taken of me while I was pregnant.
Mid-March: Decide that I can't avoid the baby quilts forever. Swap in my walking foot and try binding the chevron baby quilt again. Fail. Curse more. Baste the binding in place and try again. Fail. Give up. Quilt the round the world baby quilt down the center of every other diamond. Cut a wider $#%@! binding for this quilt, and still fail at machine binding.
Late March: Suck it up and bind the chevron baby quilt by hand.
3/28: Finish chevron baby quilt! Due to the fact that the main purple quilt is gigantic, and I was out of commission after my riding accident and through first trimester, this is my first finish in just over a year.
3/30-3/31: Don't even bother to try machine binding on the round the world quilt again, and just do it by hand. Both baby quilts are now done! We hadn't really started preparing for the twins' arrival by the time we lost them, so the two baby quilts are the only things we had that were supposed to be theirs. Decide that I like the two quilts enough, and put enough work into them, that I don't want them to just sit in a drawer forever. So if we eventually do have children, the matching purple baby quilts can be theirs. Wish that I had knit the twins hats or made them each something small that could be theirs forever. Since we never had anything for them that could be theirs forever, we bought them each a tiny stuffed goat a few days after they were born -- they would have been (or perhaps were) rams according to the Chinese zodiac.
Early April: Read a whole lot of tutorials about how to make a duvet cover. Pick features out of each of them until I have a plan. Buy the Michael's down the street out of snaps. Sort through my pile of tiny purple scraps and make tabs for the snaps, to be sewn into the corners of the duvet cover.
4/12: Clear furniture out of living room again to lay out giant purple thing. Unfortunately Chris is not out of town this time. Actually take the duvet that I bought 5 months ago out of its packaging. Develop elaborate plan to construct this gigantic object while hiding as many of the construction details as I can. Buy the Michael's down the street out of snaps again. Discover that I used the wrong sashing in one place and perform surgery. Trim the giant purple thing to size (yikes!). Attach back to top along the top and most of the two sides. Attach snaps to top corners of duvet. Chase husband and friends around the living room as giant purple quilt monster. Realize that a) I'll need to attach the duvet to the cover along the edges as well as at the corners because the thing is so damn big, and b) I've now made a gigantic QUILTBAG.
4/13-4/17: Buy Michael's out of snaps. Again. Attach many snaps to duvet and duvet cover.
4/18: Go to block of the month meeting at the quilt shop. Another attendee brings a couple of blue pineapple blossoms that she's made as charity quilts with some friends. I recognize the pattern immediately, with the quilts folded up and the wrong side out, because they have borders made out of the same corner artifacts that my border is made out of. Immediately share a picture with my husband, who is amused. Get asked, in front of a roomful of people, how the babies are doing -- I am sitting behind a table so the fact that I am not six months pregnant with twins is not obvious. Make more people cry. Get some good support and hugs from people I barely know.
4/18-4/21: More snaps. All the snaps. ARGH, snaps. Another round of surgery. Assorted other finishing work, including the rest of the side seams now that all the snaps are in place.
4/21/2015: GIANT PURPLE QUILT IS DONE!!!
4/23: My friend Kim comes to visit and actually sleeps in our guest room under the giant purple duvet. She proclaims it warm and comfy. Want to meet the giant purple quilt? Come visit me.
