THE QUILTED WOLF 🐺

Why is it that when you want something to be just perfect that's when everything goes wrong?

My great niece is also my Godbaby and she has been in love with horses and wolves for years.  For her Confirmation I wanted to make her a wolf quilt.  Patterns for wolf quilts are few and far between but I finally found one and ordered it from equilter.com They had a widget on there where you could see the pattern and change out the fabrics into the ones you liked.  I picked a gorgeous teal, lavender and purple batik swirl that would highlight the Northern Lights in the wolf panel.  It was so pretty that I also ordered it for the backing.  When it came, however, the fabric was almost all white with just a hint, if even that, of the teal, lavender and purple colors that had been so vibrant onscreen.  I went ahead and used it on the pieced top but ordered something called Grape Jam for the backing.  On the top I used a 100 weight silver thread so that it would blend into all the different colors.  Originally, I would have used silver on the bottom also but now that it was a vivid purple I ordered a matching purple thread.  Big mistake!  On the whitish fabric on the top the bobbin thread came through as little purple points whenever I started my thread.  I quilted the whole top section across the quilt in ruler work and then stippled the circles. Then I decided I hated the purple showing through and ripped it all out.  I won't even tell you how long that took. I should have just stopped after stitching the first circle, but I didn't.  So, then I decided to use the purple thread on the top and didn't like that either.  Do you think I learned my lesson the first time?  No. I should have stopped after I stitched the first purple circle and didn't like it but instead I did the whole top strip again hoping I would change my mind and like it ... and then spent another entire day ripping, ripping and ripping. And then ripping some more.  I finally used white thread in 40 weight on the top and the purple thread on the bottom and it turned out the best of the three options. 

Do YOU see vibrant teal, lavender and purple in that white.
Yeah, me neither!

No matter what I did with this quilt I ran into problems. Everything just seemed to go wrong. This is the first quilt I've had difficulties with and it bothered me because I wanted this to be perfect for my Godbaby.  About two thirds of the way through I decided I was just going to make this a practice quilt and a learning experience and I would simply reorder the panel and start over from scratch.  But when I was finished I sat down to reorder the panel and they no longer had it. Aaaaaggggghhhhhhh!  

The wolf is looking at me!

Here is what I learned ... 

Not everything can or will be perfect. And, sometimes, because I'm old I think I can skip the practice part and jump straight to perfect.  But life doesn't work that way.  It doesn't care if you're young or old you've got to put in the practice.  And, most importantly, I learned that there are actually four layers to a quilt ... not three.

There is, of course, the pieced top, the batting and the backing; those are the three layers that everyone knows about, but there is also a fourth layer.  The fourth layer is where it's all quilted together with love❣️ That fourth layer doesn't care about perfection at all.  While I worked on this quilt I remembered my Godbaby as a baby, as a toddler, as a little girl and now as a beautiful young woman.  All my love for her was stitched into this quilt.  Quite honestly, that's all that's important, right?

Your mistakes in life, and in art, and in all things, make you learn and grow and become stronger, which enables you to make the things you're passionate about turn into things of beauty.  Just remember to always add that "fourth layer" into everything you do ... the one where you add in the love❣️

Here is a video taken in dim lighting in order for the quilting to show up better.  Enjoy!  And make sure and stitch some love into your world!