Deconstructing and Reconstructing Butterfly Quilt and Thoughts on Hand Quilting and Must We Always Be in a Hurry?

My Pfaff Expression 3.5 sewing machine, intuitive and 'charming.'

My deconstructed butterfly quilt now being reconstructed!

The new backing fabric for my butterfly quilt, pinned and ready for hand quilting.

'Atmosphere' lights and 2018 cow/farm calendar with bits of color inspiration.

Hand quilting started with cotton pearl #12.

Seer Sucker black and white for new binding, think 'utility'.

My zipper pouch keeps my spools of thread, I like the texture and the utility look.

Happy Weekend! from the Pacific NW where we have warm temperatures and clear skies.

And I've been doing some rethinking about some of my projects especially after visiting Jillayne  and Karen , two textile artists extraordinaire. They do thoughtful beautiful work and get it done in a timely fashion. It's not that they exhaust themselves, I think balance is the word.

I had finished my small butterfly quilt a couple of weeks ago with machine quilting. And the more I looked at it the more I didn't like that machine quilting. Another of my blog friends was in the process of deconstructing a worn antique quilt with the thoughts of repairing and reusing the blocks in a new quilt.

If these people can take time to lovingly stitch and create and repair then I think I can do that too.

So I unpicked the machine quilting on my butterfly quilt, not as bad as you might think, and took the layers apart. I had used a thin batting, Quilter's Dream, and it was too thin, it didn't give the body I wanted. So I replaced that with Warm and Natural, much better. I also gave it a new backing. I had bought a yard of a black and white butterfly fabric just to use on this quilt but for some reason I had whipped up an improve backing and used that instead. So that improv backing will get repurposed.

And now I'm hand quilting with cotton pearl #12 and it looks like I wanted it to look.

I'm happy about that.

So my thoughts through all this are 'Why must we always be in a hurry?'

Is there some book deadline to meet? No. Are we in a contest to see who can punch out the most quilts? Not me anyway. 

Why do I stitch and quilt and blog? I enjoy it and reading about other textile/sewing/quilt artists' adventures and methods. Just have to clarify that once in a while!

My zipper pouch, black and white, made with quilted scrap fabric and 'made' fabric, I like looking at because it says 'utility' and 'useful' to me. I made it using MSQC's Zippered Pouch YouTube tutorial.
Good tutorial, easy to follow and you can add your own touches.

So I hope you take time to visit the blogs I've linked for some relaxed beauty.

And just be thankful, the best things in life are free.

I'll be by to visit!