If I Made You a Thing

I was pondering lots of everything recently as I trimmed the edges of my latest quilt in preparation for binding. I possibly should not have rejoined the local quilt guild or, having done so, not become a more active member. This thought occurred to me as I trimmed the somewhat un-square corners of the quilt and, again, viewed the small puckers visible on the back of the quilt.

At one guild chapter meeting, a discussion was held on what type of needles members liked for what purpose. Upon my turn, I described myself  as a "ghetto quilter" and noted that a good needle was one I could thread with my 63-year-old eyes. I similarly do not obsess over what brand of thread I use for the quilting, really only caring about the color and whether it gives the effect I want. If there were quilting "neighborhoods," mine would be one you might not want to visit.

I know, for example, that there should not be puckers on the back of a quilt after it is quilted. I assume that if one stretches the backing tightly enough when basting--with thread or pins--the layers of the quilt together and/or stretches the layers snugly when quilting, the finished back will be puckerless. I have possibly achieved an unpuckered back on a wall hanging, but I am not sure I ever have on a larger piece. The two pieces I have had professionally quilted have no back puckers, nor do the quilts other guild members bring to Show and Tell. Even when I consciously try to not have puckers, well, yeah, I still end up with them.

I also know that the corners of a quilt should be square assuming, that is, that the quilt itself is rectangular in shape. Again, I am not sure I have ever had four square corners on the same quilt. As with the puckers, I might have executed square corners on a wall hanging, particularly if it were of a size matching one of my larger cutting templates. On a larger quilt, though, the border may not always be precisely the same width along a side since I might have had to trim it more in one place or another to keep a side as straight as possible.

And then there is the binding itself. I have never mastered machine binding despite having taken a very informative workshop on the subject. In terms of hand binding, the quilts others bring to Show and Tell have no visible stitches along the length of the binding. I have asked several members how they do this, and they usually reply with something like, "You just hide them." This tells me nothing about whether I am supposed to do the stitch on the back of the quilt inside where the edge will sit and put the stitch in the binding underneath what shows. If that is the case, I wish someone would show or tell me how to do it.

And if I can't hide the stitches that hold the binding down, the same can be said about the stitches that hold the label on the back of a quilt. Actually, even my labels seem to be on the plain side. Rarely do I put any decoration around the text, and the text is generally just something about the recipient of the quilt and why he or she is getting it.

I say all this but then have to admit that no one who has received one of my quilts has ever mentioned the puckers or the corners or the visible stitches. It may be that I have only given quilts to very polite people, but if you know my friends, you know that's probably not the case. They see beyond those visible shortcomings and, I hope, know how special they are to me or to whoever asked me to make the quilt in the first place.