Good Morning, Quilters!
Several weeks ago, I created a large whole cloth quilt sandwich (44 x 36″)…(Warm and Natural light weight cotton batting).
I’ve been using this piece to try out new motifs like (The New Leaf) and experimenting with motif combinations.
I’ve also been using this piece to clear my head…
YOU know, those days when our thoughts keep spinning and spinning…
I guess I could call it my “Brain Drain” quilt.
Now you know what the inside of my brain looks like!!
What about YOU?
Do YOU ever quilt to clear your head?
Do YOU keep a practice piece at-the-ready?
What does YOUR “Brain-Drain” quilt look like?
We’d LOVE to hear!
Signed,
Ain’t-No-Albert-Einstein,
Lori
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SIGNED COPIES MAKE GREAT Mother’s Day Gifts!!!
26 comments
bbquiltmaker
I need to do this. A few practice pieces are ready to be donated to the animal shelter. I want to make one that deserves to be kept as an example of my favorite designs.
Vanessa
I keep whole cloth solids around just for this reason ! Free motion practicing on your domestic machine on a new design helps you get a feel for it… Figure out how to enter and exit the design to get the look you want or to move into another element . Then when I do get on the longarm I know how I want to execute my design or get out of a pickle (who put that pickle there anyhow! Lol!)
If my mind is busy or my heart is heavy it helps to just do some stitching , play with pretty fabric, make a gift.
Lori Kennedy
Vanessa, from what I can tell, YOUR mind is ALWAYS BUSY! LOL
Vanessa
Bahahaha! It’s a bit annoying at 2-3 in the morning !
Gertrude DeBoer
We’ve had a difficult winter, for various reasons, and quilting (by that I mean piecing) has been my life saver. While I’m working I can’t worry. And the benefit is that I am getting a lot done!! I don’t have a second machine that I can just set up and leave for quilting practice. I really must see if I can do that at some point. I keep thinking about it….
Nancy
I love doing freeform quilting on a fat quarter size piece. I bind them then to finish and keep them for reference. But to practice for a quilt with piecing make a practice piece and mark off borders and block shapes so you can fit your quilting into the piecing. Both are fun.
Edith
I like your idea , quilting though is very difficult for me. A love to put the top together….. and them don’t finish the quilt….
Nancy Selzer
Don’t be silly. We all quilt to clear our heads. Sitting at our sewing machines doing anything is much better for our mental health than what’s going on in the world around us. And if we can produce something at the same time, that’s just a bonus.
Lori Kennedy
Yep! Quilting is so calming!
Suzanne G
Looks like a perfectly normal brain to me!
Elizabeth Blois
What a great way to practice ideas and to quilt little bits of motifs to try them out rather than doing a big quilt of them, thank you for the inspiration. My practice pieces are A4 sheets of felt and I have lots of them, some look nice, some are rubbish so i think I’d still do a trial on felt before going on to the practice quilt!
I also checked out the blog link on the comment by annwalsh2015 amazing, thanks to you too Ann for making that lovely work public.
annwalsh2015
Since you asked, I’ll show you what mine looks like – I call it an “idea dump” and I just did it over the last week to clear my head for a bit! I don’t know how to share a photo in a comment here, but this is the link to my blog where I wrote about it: https://annwalshquilting.com/2018/05/08/improv-composition-1-and-pinterest-adventure-days-17-thru-24/
Lori Kennedy
Your work is beautiful! LOVE how you break up the quilt into boxes–“Divide and Conquer”!
Elizabeth Blois
Thanks for showing us your fabulous quilting Ann, very inspiring.
sheilaoxley
You have a beautiful mind! I love your Brain Drain quilt!!! It’s beautiful!!!
Lori Kennedy
Thank you! Have you given this technique a try?
Linda
I confess I fear that were I to drain my brain, there’d be little brain left!
Lori Kennedy
LOLOL!!!
Catholic Bibliophagist
Having a longarm makes it hard to have a practice piece that I can work on at any time. But I’ve been thinking that I could put a practice piece onto the frame whenever I’m between quilts.
Lori Kennedy
That’s a good point…I guess there are a few advantages to a sit down long arm and a domestic sewing machine! LOL
Meredith Stockford
You amaze me! Not sure my brain is ready for “da drain”!!! Love your blog! Travis turned me on to you!!
Lori Kennedy
So glad you joined us, Meredith! Don’t you just LOVE Travis! We do!
Pat
I keep a quilting practice piece, but it never looks like that! I’ll practice a motif until I’m comfortable, then I’ll use the same piece over and over for additional motifs, moving the material without regard to open space, just trying out different stuff. Only the thread color changes so I can see what I’ve done. Yours finish up looking like a week of art.
Lori Kennedy
A lot of my practice pieces look like that too! I decided to make this one a little more intentional and it was fun!
Judy
I tend to do mind-less piecing — scrap quilt tops for charity quilts. I like the idea of a quilting practice piece though.
Lori Kennedy
I think either form would do the trick…zoning out! You should try a quilted piece like this (and I will try some scrap piecing)!
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