My quilt collaboration skills could use improvement. LOTS of improvement. I came to this unfortunate realization during the planning phase of my latest quilt. Originally, there was a team effort to make this quilt but then I did what I do best (irritated the crap out of my older sister) and the team was reduced to ME. Let's blame it on the fact that I almost always make quilts by myself. Yep, that's it. That's my excuse. Usually when I make a quilt, I choose the pattern, the fabric, the quilting design, the thread--I make all the decisions. Occasionally I ask for outside opinions, but in the end I have complete creative control. I like it that way. Who doesn't like to be in charge? And of course I generally think everything I make is wonderful and brilliant...so there's that. (Did I mention I am conceited too?!) :) With all that said, it should come as no surprise that while working on this quilt, I hit a couple of snags in the collaboration department.
This quilt was made for my little sister Juli...luckiest girl in the family because this is her second quilt in less than a year (first one is here). Normally I like to spread the quilty love out a little bit but Juli got married last month so she NEEDED another one! Yay for weddings! It was lovely, and Juli was a beautiful bride!
When we found out about the upcoming wedding, my older sister Allison (who also quilts) suggested making Juli's quilt together. I had been planning on just making one myself, but I was a busy girl, so I thought a little teamwork would be a faster, smarter way to get it done. Allison and I have made quilts together a couple times before: once with a quilt from a kit, and once when Allison chose the fabric and pattern, pieced the top and then I quilted it. We'd never done one quite like this before...you know, one where we had to agree on the fabric and pattern. In hindsight, I probably should have just told Allison in the beginning that I wanted to do my own thing, because I think that was my real problem. Though I didn't have anything in mind, I knew I wanted it to be something Juli would like, and I wanted it to be awesome (read: I wanted it to be my idea).
After tossing a few ideas around, (ok, it was more like me just shooting down every idea that Allison suggested) I finally just quizzed Juli about what kind of quilt she would like. She told me she liked the style of this stripey quilt and this other quilt I made a few years back. She also told me she wanted it to be mostly coral but a little bit of navy blue too. Yikes. The color combo sounded a little daunting, but luckily those colors are both trendy right now so fabric wasn't hard to find. A stripey quilt would have been super easy, but I wanted to do something I'd never done before. I thought a herringbone pattern would work well because it would have the look that Juli liked and make the color scheme doable. So I mocked it up in inkscape (I know...I'm so predictable!) and showed it to Allison. She thought it was ok, so we started talking fabric.