Quilting: Rules of the Game
Not all quilters know all the rules, and as a public service to those newcomers
to the world of quilting, here are some of the essential rules of quilting:
1. Nothing ever turns out to look the way it does in the magazine
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has tried even the smallest
quilt project. We don't know what they do to the quilts they show
in the magazines; there must be miracles of photography or computer graphics
hidden in there.
2. All quilt projects take longer than you expect
This is, in fact, a variation on Murphy's Law as applied to quilting, but
it has profound implications. At the very least, no quilter should
ever promise a quilt at any particular time. Something will
inevitably happen to throw you off that promised date. If it isn't
a sudden inexplicable shortage of fabric in the right color (see Rule 3),
it's a sudden mechanical failure of your sewing machine. The fates
are so dedicated to slowing down quilters that if none of the above happen,
then there's likely to be some disaster that will bring your house to a
total standstill, if only to make that quilt take longer than you expect!
3. Nobody ever has enough fabric. This hasn't been
scientifically proven, but probably even fabric stores run out of the right
shade of red, or that particular print that someone wanted. For us
ordinary quilters, the rule can be invoked at any time. The mere
existence of an entire bookshelf, stuffed full of fabrics of all different
colors and shades, does not mean that you have the right fabric.
You must always get some more.
4. There is never enough storage space. When quilters
dream, and when we're not dreaming of new patterns (or color combinations!),
we dream of having entire mansions full of space for storage of fabrics
and quilt supplies. We all know, however, that even a mansion would
prove inadequate. Olympic sized swimming pools, stacked with fabrics,
would not be sufficient to store all the necessities for a good quilter.
Quilt supplies expand to overfill the available space.
5. Fabrics rearrange themselves when you're not looking.
You were sure that black fabric with the little white roses on it
was right there in the bin. You saw it ten minutes ago, when you
didn't need it, but now it's not there. This is the reason: the fabric
has followed the essential law of fabrics and has migrated. Some
fabrics are not content merely to hide in different parts of your sewing
room. Some aren't even content to hide in different parts of your
house (occasioning the puzzled question, "Honey, how did this fabric get
into the silverware drawer?"). Yes, there are some fabrics that will
actually move into different people's houses, just to drive you crazy.
6. Sewing tables shrink when you set up sewing machines on
them. You can measure the table all you like. You can measure
your sewing machine a dozen times. You can conclusively prove, on
paper, that there should be a foot of space all around the sewing machine
when you set it up. It doesn't matter. Once you have the sewing
machine on the table, your space disappears. Sometimes you find that
your sewing machine itself doesn't fit on the table, but this is a rare
event.
7. All cutting errors make your fabric pieces too small, never
too large. People have tried to compensate for this for years,
but now the truth is known. It is impossible to make a cutting error
that results in your pieces being too large. The corollary of this
rule is that you will not discover the size problem until after you have
started to put the blocks together, or after you have run out of
the necessary fabric, have gone to the fabric store and (see rule 3, above),
discovered that there is no more of that necessary fabric.
8. Nobody but a fellow quilter will ever really understand.
Sad but true. Your nearest and dearest secretly think you're nuts
when you get really involved in a quilt (some of your nearest and dearest
aren't even very secret about it). People who aren't quilters may
admire your finished projects, but nobody who isn't a quilter will really
appreciate the work and the love that went into a quilt. This is
the only rule for which there's a remedy: meet more quilters, and
spend time commiserating with them!
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