The Michael Myers Quilt
Sometimes, inspiration strikes me at the most strange moments and that was completely the case with this quilt. I was happily working on the Joshy quilt, with no plans to make another. I was having a bit of a crap day, I remember feeling pretty low – totally can’t remember why (which reminds me of that brilliant Maya Angelou quote:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” oh, so true) anyways, I digress!
I was in a rotten mood and I have learned that sometimes working on quilts when in a rotten mood is not the best idea. Sometimes it serves just to add a layer of frustration to an already bad situation as if you are not focused and ‘in the moment’ you will probably end up doing a lot of unpicking…and really, who wants a quilt with anger and annoyance sewn into every stitch??! (i’m kidding!)
So in a bid to break free from the pissy mood I was in, I gathered up the pug and we were going to go ‘walk it out’ Bella reluctantly complied, whilst walks are amongst her top three activities, she is not use to doing them
- In the afternoon when she should be tackling nap number 7, or
- When the weather is crap
And today hit all of the above.
So we walked, I moped and fretted and was solidly into my bad mood then BAM! Michael Myers popped into my head! I saw him on a plain black background, making his white mask pop and I knew (for the first time, without hesitation) that this would make a fantastic pixel quilt – I could see it!
Upon finishing our drag around the block, I came home and put his image into a pixel maker and there he was. He worked. Straight off, no 3 days of agonising and messing with odd pixels.
Whilst I was still deep into the making of the Josh quilt, I ordered the fabric for Michael and knew not only would this quilt work, but it would also take A LOT less time than the others, I was also excited to see a pixel quilt on a background that was black as this was completely new to me.
He did sew together quick (I think I made him in one weekend)
He was completely freaky and after taking a few quick pics, I did take him off the frame as he was kinda freaking me out!!
I showed him to the kids and they were equally freaked out and I knew that this was a quilt that I would be very happy to bring out at Halloween! The only difference with this quilt is that I wasn’t in any hurry to get it quilted and I was thinking with the simplicity of it, I would probably end up quilting it myself.
So he actually then sat in my room for 2.5 months until I was ready to give it a go.
I’m not a quilter – I can stipple but anything other than that is a stretch.
But I wanted to try something different on this quilt, I though it just needed something more edgy. So I straight line quilted it at all different widths.
And I am happy to report that I really like it. My worry that it would detract from the design was completely unfounded and I love the effect,
He is still to be hand bound and I am still trying to find a creepy location here in Tulsa to take him and photograph him!
The funny thing about this quilt is that, as the inspiration has struck me so hard and poor! he was just there and I could see him perfectly, I was hoping that would mean something had just clicked in my brain and I wold now be able to visualise any pixel quilt perfectly clearly – and long gone were the days of agonising over designs.
It would appear I was completely wrong about that!
72″ x 96″
1,134 pieces of fabric
8 colours