Making a Mess Monday

I have been making this quilt since 22nd March 2010. It's been a labour of not exactly love - more grim determination. I have now assembled all the bits and am ready to move to the quilting stage. EXCEPT...all the paper pieces need to be untacked and taken out.

There are literally thousands. This is not a quick job.

I remember talking to someone about the Kaffe Fassett knitting exhibition that had been on in the V&A years ago. They had talked about wanting to be able to see the inside of the intarsia and fairisle garments to see how the 'wrong side' had been handled. Then there is Kate who has a unique turn of phrase and talks about the "naughty" or "private" side (technical term) of her knitting. Quilts of course have exactly the same thing.

At the Festival of Quilts I had to physically restrain my mater from lifting up the quilt edges to look at the backs, despite the "DO NOT TOUCH" signs in every language and all handmade hanging from every available post.

It's natural to want to see what people have done where they weren't expecting it to show. Possibly this is why people (in general, not me) like reality shows.

So having to remove each of these paper hexagons individually, every one having been hand sewn by myself in the first place, has given me quite a lot of time to contemplate the naughty side.

Still another couple of hundred to go....things may get naughtier.