I listen to a lot of podcasts about decluttering. One of the things I've heard discussed quite a bit is decision fatigue. When you are decluttering, decisions have to made about every object you touch, do I want to keep this? If I do keep it, how should it be stored and where, if I don't, donate, sell, or trash?
The thing is, I think decision fatigue affects us a lot more than most people realize. After all, is it really that you don't like to cook or don't want to cook, or that at the end of a long day you don't have it in you to decide WHAT to cook. If you opt for not cooking, it's still a list of decisions to make. Do we have enough leftovers for dinner? Do we have enough money for a restaurant? Eat-in, take-out or delivery? Where do you want to eat? I don't know, where do you want to eat? Sound familiar?
This post is not aimed at who make two or three quilts in their lifetime, nor is it for people who enter their quilts in shows. On those type of quilts, every decision does matter. I'm specifically talking to the many quilters who want to make more quilts. Let's say you want to make more quilts so you can support one of the many great quilting charities. When you are a prolific quilter, you can also get decision fatigue.
I want to be real here, when a quilt is given to a charity, then given to its end recipient, as a quilt maker you have no idea how that quilt be be used or treated. The hope is that the quilt will be loved and cherished, and bring the recipient joy and comfort. The reality may be quite different. I would think most recipients are grateful to receive a quilt, but once the crisis that made them eligible to receive that quilt is over, whether that quilt is still loved and cherished varies greatly. The thing is, you never know which quilts are going to be the cherished ones, so making good quilts should always be our goal.
The most frequent question I am asked as a quilter by other quilters is how do I make so many quilts. I know there's a lot of people out there making lots more quilts that I do, but I think that for someone who makes all their quilts start to finish by themselves, without a longarm, I do make more than average.
I have some thoughts that might make you more prolific if that's your goal. They aren't rules, I'm not the quilt police. Keep in mind, these ideas are not for heirloom quilts, but for quilts you want to see used on a regular basis.
1) Change the way you make decisions. Give yourself some easy guidelines to help when you are overthinking things.
I can give so many examples of this!
Quilt backs- I tend to use things I want to clear out of stash as backings. I don't know about you, but I am not in love with everything in my stash. Some are things I bought at a thrift shop, or I was given, or I inherited, or I've already used in several quilts and I'm sick of it. For whatever reason, if I want it out of stash, a quilt back is a quick way to get it gone. I do try to use a color that somewhat coordinates with the top, but just use your judgement here.
Here's an example of a quilt back that doesn't quite match the front.
I finished this quilt this week. It's scrappy, there's a lot of color going on here. How did I back it?
I backed it with these dinosaurs riding skateboards in a funky 90's print I just got in a thrift store haul. Did I have a better option in stash? Probably, but using this fabric meant I never had to put the skateboarding dinosaurs into stash at all, I had enough fabric to back the quilt, and the small scraps I have left of it will be cut down to the scrap sizes I save.
This quilt is a good example of some other easy decision making habits I have.
What color quilting thread to use, and what color binding? Sometimes I have specific choices in mind for thread and binding color, other times I don't care much. Rather than overthink it, if I could go several ways on the thread and binding color, and I don't really care, my habit is to match the backing. On a really scrappy quilt, nothing is going to match every fabric, unless it's a monochromatic quilt, so really, almost any color thread and binding can work. I could take the time to audition multiple options, and hem and haw about, but if my goal is to make more quilts, I need easy decisions. Match the backing is an easy fix that works most of the time. If I'm using a really busy backing, I use the opportunity to use up partial bobbins, making the most of my thread stash.
If whatever backing fabric I want to bust from stash isn't quite large enough, I go first to my orphan blocks and see if I can piece a strip of those together to make the difference. I use up a lot of orphan blocks and units that way.
2) If there's a step in making a quilt you don't like doing, try other options for that step. I don't like binding, so I use extra wide double fold bias tape (which I buy by the 100 yard roll) and I use a serpentine stitch to sew it on. Could I get away with that if I were entering a quilt show? Nope, but these are for utility quilts, and I just want them used. It's pretty fast and I've NEVER had a binding come undone when sewn this way. There are nicer options for machine sewing on binding, I'm not even suggesting you do it my way. My point is, figure out an easier way for you to do a step you don't like. If you don't like basting, try fusible batting or spray basting. If you don't like sewing on borders, try making a few quilts without them. Check out modern quilts, they often don't have borders. Don't like needle turn applique? Try fusible applique. Don't like cutting? Look into a die cutting machine or opt for quilts with large pieces so there isn't as much cutting to do.
3) Can you make one task do two jobs? This is something I do a lot too. It's multitasking at it's most efficient. Probably the most frequent example of this is double sewing when I'm doing sew and flip corners. If I'm using a 2.5" square or larger to do do sew and flip corners, I will take the time to double sew and get a bonus HST every time. I have made many, many quilts using bonus HST's, and I often like them better than the original quilt.
Another way of making one task do two jobs is using something rather than taking the time to put it away.
None of my epic fabric birthday cake got put into stash, I decided to use it all right away. I made this top out of the jelly roll in the top layer of my cake. I added some scraps I had been cutting and hadn't put away yet. It was looking pretty disjointed, because the jelly roll wasn't one line of fabric, so I felt like it really needed a calm border to pull it all together. The predominant color in the quilt is green, but I opted to use a blue border.
4) Have a couple easy finishing standby's to use when you can't decide how to finish a quilt. I tied my first few quilts, and I think all of those quilts are still in use years later. I sent a few of my first queen/king quilts to a longarmer with mixed results. Not all longarmers are good at their jobs, and even the good ones may have equipment issues and different standards than you. When DD#1 got married, I made her a queen sized quilt and tied it. They still have that quilt and it is still doing just fine. The next large quilt I made her I sent to a longarmer. There were tension issues on that quilt, the longarmer used a very long stitch length, and between pets and kids, there have been a lot of thread breaks over the years, and whole sections of the quilting is gone. Even if the longarmer result had been much better, I can't afford to send every quilt out for quilting. (I have used other longarmers since, with varying results) Unless you are independently wealthy, if you are a prolific quilter, you probably can't afford that either. There are so many tutorials available on finishing quilts, learn at least a couple different methods, so when the quilt tops pile up, you have the skills to turn those quilt tops into quilts. Some people like tying quilts, some don't. Some people are scared to try FMQ, others love it. Some people like using a ruler foot and quilt rulers, or stencils to keep their quilting neat, other people freehand it all. Some like using a walking foot, other don't. The thing is, there's going to be a method that works for you. I decided a long time ago that I'd rather do a simple meander on every quilt I make and finish quilts, than leave behind piles and piles of unquilted tops. Do I meander on every quilt? Nope. I am proficient at multiple FMQ designs now, and sometimes I like to use my walking foot, or do some ruler work, or even use stencils. The thing is, if I'm stuck on a quilting design, my go to is a meander. It's quick and I don't have to think much about it.
There's a lot more I could say about efficiency in making quilts, but that's enough food for thought for today. Hopefully something in this post with resonate with someone. Even if all you get from this is that overthinking is slowing you down, you might be able to start on the path to easier decisions.
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