Math. Problems.

Me + Color = Good.  Great, in fact.  Love color.  Love playing with palettes.  Love, love, love.  But, you already know this about me.

 

If I could be locked in a room for a day with nothing but a bunch of markers and a pile of paper, or a basket of fabric and a needle and thread, a box of chocolates, and an unlimited supply of diet Dr. Pepper, I'd be a happy, happy girl.  You probably suspected as much.

 

I love having one piece of fabric that I adore, and adding other bits to it to come up with a beautiful quilt.  I am blissful when auditioning fabrics, trying out color combinations, and sketching blocks with my No. 2 pencil on tablets of gridded paper.  I bought this Kaffe fabric a couple of summers ago (the blue sky with red and orange sunny-flowers).  And I've been craving a little pinwheel-whirlygig motif for a quilt.  I raided the stash for some go-withs, and this little quilt top blew in.  The pinwheels were really fun to whip together.  When I had the blocks all arranged and stitched in pretty little rows,  I decided I wanted to finish it off with a foxy, boxy little border.  Because that's how I do things.  I make it up as I go along.  I fly by the seat of my pants.  I cut and stitch and hope for the foxy-boxy best.  However...

  

Me + Math = Not-so-Good. 

Ack!  Look at that little snip-snip-part-of-a-foxy-box.  Rats!  I hate when that happens.  I know there are lots of you out there who love the giant QUILTINGMATHPROBLEM.   You love figuring out how a quilt will go mathematically together.  I envy you.  I never liked math.  My mom had to draaaaaaaaaagggggggggg me to the dining room table to do my math homework.  She had to bribe me with chocolate and treats to flash multiplication flash cards at me the night prior to a timestabletest.  And when it came time to learn how to balance a checkbook?  Fuggedaboudit!  My constant refrain: "When will I eeeeevvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrr really need to know all this in real life?"  Uh huh.  When you're making a foxy-boxy-quilt-border, that's when!  (Wherever she is now, Mom is laughing her a** off, and I can hear her saying, "see what I mean?" between giggles.)  So.  The future of this little quilt?  I'm taking it to a new quilter on Monday, because it's perfect enough for me.  However, I'm thinking I might give it another whirl (haha) and actually DO THE MATH because this would be a pretty fun pattern, n'est-ce pas?  Stay tuned. 

 
  
 

Comments

[Suzanne]

I think the whole shebang looks pretty wonderful. Life is too short for quilting math!

[Jeanne]

You are so funny Tammy! I am not too fond of math either, especially when my figures don't work out so good. But I kind of like that "snip-snip-part-of-a-foxy-box-border." It adds "character" to the quilt and lots of whimsy too!
xo
jeanne

[happy zombie]

I think you should name your quilting "[our favorite potty-mouth word] YOU MATH"! I love you, love the quilt, love that you yin the math - when I want to yang it. Like THAT didn't sound like it should come with a MA rating.

[happy zombie]

Opps... name your QUILT...

[Carol Cotton]

Why don't you apply BOTH planning and carefree no math quilting? Plan for the borders to not be the right size and put the different sized piece in the center of the border. I love your quilts regardless!
Carol C.

[Maija Lepore]

I think it's charming!!!!!!

[Vickie]

Nice. Color is good, math is hard. However, math is a necessary evil at times :)