How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Practice, practice, practice.  (I think I might have used that blog title before)

And, while I still cannot play the piano, I have spent much more time practicing my quilting and fabric choices.  Cuz, you're about to see some horrors.  Prepare yourself.  Take off your glasses, turn down the brightness on your monitor.  Save your eyes! 

This is the best of them.  I'm actually pretty happy with this quilt.  I was too cheap uhm, frugal to buy the kimono pattern, so I drafted one.  My mentor taught me to draft so I could alter the size of blocks.  But, I've used it for all kind of things, including drafting original blocks. 

The fabrics were given to me and are supposed to be original Japanese cotton kimono fabrics.  But, you know how given and supposed to work together, right?  You never know the actual origin. 

There's a replica of this quilt on permanent display in an office (from some old ambition to publicly display my quilts) that is the same, except the kimonos all have reds in their prints. 

This is one of the first quilts I made.  I made two, one for my Mom in lap size and this one that I've kept as a reminder.  In the beginning, it was hard to let quilts go, so smaller replicas were a way I could give one, and still keep at least a part of it.

Cover your eyes!

When Sydney came to live here, I wanted to teach her to quilt.  I made the common parental mistake of wanting her to learn, instead of create (parents beware!  if you want you children to craft with you, then let them do it in their own way.  Right and wrong are for later, when you're grown and don't know better.)  Sydney's top never got finished and is in my studio closet as a UFO.  She agreed that I could finish it and donate it, but I think I'm not going to give it away.  Too many memories in it.

She chose three shades of blue for hers.  I chose this background print, and then matched contrasting fabrics to the most obscure shades in the print.  It's never looked great, but it spent many years hanging in front of our fireplace, as a fireplace screen. 

Okay, so now you know three more of my secrets.  If you're an experienced quilter, I hope you're sharing my laughs.  If you're a new quilter or a wannabe quilter, then I hope you're seeing that you're not going to pick up fabric and thread and make Radiate.  You're gonna make some ugly before you get to beautiful.  Slow down and enjoy it. 

Lane