Have you ever given a quilt away only to regret it? I have. I’ve given away quilts that later would have been useful for photos or talks or classes. I’ve given away or sold WIPs (works in progress) that had been languishing for too long, only to come up with a brilliant idea after I’d shipped it. And, I’ve let my daughter give her friend a quilt I finished too quickly as a birthday gift.
I’m not a very nostalgic person. I don’t keep things as a habit. I have hardly anything from when the kids were little. My dream alter ego is someone who lives with almost nothing in a tiny house, or a tiny city apartment. But instead I live with 4 people and 2 dogs, all of whom have no dreams of a life of minimalism, and I live with myself, a prolific quilter who can’t keep her sewing room tidy.
And so, with the constant creative tension that comes with wanting to be two different people and living with people who make it easy to be one and not the other, I live in a big house in a country town, I leave the kids and their rooms full of stuff alone, I never enter the garage, which can’t fit our car, and I always say yes to requests for quilts as gifts.
I started this version of Eden Quilt (pattern and templates here!) during the pandemic lockdowns in an effort to sort out my scrap bins. We had just moved into our first home which included a special, large room for me and my laser cutter. In the early years of my business, I cut the paper templates for my shop in a brick shed of an old hospital that was rented out by the room to small businesses. It was the only room available with doors wide enough to fit the beast, but it was dusty and drafty, and though I stored all my sewing gear there, I rarely sewed there. I got into the habit of mostly sewing quilts from single collections in fat quarter bundles because it kept my quilts easy to start and easy to manage. So when the house we’d started building over a year earlier was finished just a week before the world shut down, we quickly packed up everything from the studio and our small, rented home and dumped it all in the new workroom.
As we slowly started to get our heads around our new, unexpected life - around living at home full time, homeschooling, around my business being our only income, and also around our new, expected one - unpacking boxes, putting up shelves and pictures, and turning the building site mud pit into some kind of garden, I discovered that my barely used, rarely sorted, and quickly and messily packed scraps were like a hoarder’s living room. I had baskets and tubs and garbage bags full of partially used fabric in no particular order. I decided that if I was going to do a massive clean up, I needed to make a quilt while doing so.
I have hardly any photos of the process, and I think it’s probably because it engaged me so thoroughly that I forgot to. The first photo that I have of making this quilt is the one at the top of this post, blocks already in rows. I feel really sad about that. But basically what I did was grab a piece of fabric, cut it into a jewel or diamond, depending on its value (light or dark), and then put the fabric into its colour pile, or in a bag of scraps to donate or sell, or if it was too small to be useful, in the bin. Once I’d finished sorting scraps, and finished cutting shapes, I had a neatly organised collection of useful scraps, and a quilt ready to stitch! Like this quilt’s namesake, I was making a garden out of chaos, and unlike my experiences of real gardening, it came together quickly and easily.
After I finished the quilt top, my friend Jackie offered to quilt it on her new long-arm machine and I happily agreed. I then bound it, took a quick, uninteresting video of it for Instagram, forgot to take further photos, and then packed my sewing room up again for our interstate move to be closer to family after months of closed borders. The photo below is the last photo I took of her.
My Eden Quilt probably sat neatly folded in my quilt cupboard for a year or more before Evie asked me if she could give it to a friend. But after it left, I immediately regretted it. I have several quilts that I don’t give away, that are more personal, more connected to stories, or just ones I’m particularly proud of. I should have added this one to that collection.
I kept wondering if I should make another one, which is strange for me, because I never make a scrappy quilt twice. Usually, once I have, it’s out of my system. I think maybe the lack of photos, and the not quilting it myself - both experiences which allow you to go over the quilt again, to take in the fabric combinations, the long loved scraps, the memories of other quilts made from the original fat quarters of fabric - meant that the quilt didn’t feel done for me, and I wanted to keep going.
I kept almost starting it and then holding myself back. I’ve just started a big, long project I can’t share yet, and there’s just no justifying the time. And so instead, I had the idea that maybe I could ask for the quilt back? Not permanently, not to keep or swap for another, just for a visit, for more photos, another look.
I ran it past Evie and thankfully she agreed to ask, and didn’t look at me like I was crazy (you never know which response you’re going to get from a 14 year old!). This Eden quilt and I spent about a week together. The photos I got of her aren’t anything special, but the time I got with her was. I enjoyed the fabrics now long used up, enjoyed the evidence that I’d made it, finished it, loved it. I enjoyed the sparkly, scrappy, repeating pattern. I took it all in, took a deep breath, and then I gave her back. Back to fulfil her purpose as a much loved quilt on a teenage girl’s bed, rather than folded up neatly in my quilt cupboard.
I’m so glad I asked for it back! Though I’m more careful with which quilt I let my kids give away now, it helped me let go of my gifter’s regret, helped me feel glad my quilt was being loved. It made me think of the movie ‘Toy Story’ and the unhappy toys that get put in storage or displayed on shelves rather than loved by a child. I think maybe this quilt is happier in its new home.
Have you ever given away or sold a quilt you wish you hadn’t?
Happy stitching,
Jodi. xx
PS. Make your own scrappy, nostalgic, chaos-into-a-beautiful Eden Quilt with the pattern and templates here!
Thank you Karen! I look forward to seeing your Eden quilt one day! ❤️
Your Eden Quilt is a beauty Jodi - one I am considering making one day. I love your conclusion, making it easier to part with it again, knowing it's well loved :)