I first heard about machine quilting back in the late 80s from Harriet Hargrave. She was one of the pioneers of machine quilting, and she’d come to QuiltNebraska to share her techniques.

I remember a lot of things from those lectures but the main thing I took away was that quilting could finally be fast.

Remember, we were comparing it to hand quilting, and by comparison I guess it was. But fast was not a concept that did me any favors in the years after that. It was decades before I realized that I could benefit from slowing down just about every part of machine quilting.

Recently I have found that of all the tasks I should not rush, deciding what to quilt is among the most important.

Coming from that “speedy” mindset, I’ve been used to completing a quilt top, basting it the same day, and slapping it under the needle: Ready, set, GO!

Turns out that’s not the best system.

A better way is to sit with the quilt. I’m now taking my time to let it talk to me, or for an idea to come to me.

It’s a little like living in a new house for a while before you hang things on the walls. You need to understand the space.

For this set of four 18″ blocks, I’m thinking about how I’ll divide the space. It could be according to the piecing.

But it could also totally ignore the piecing.

I could make it look traditional with feathers or wreaths.

I could try and make it look more modern. The blocks are from Amy Ellis’s book Think Big, so it seems they were originally geared toward a modern-quilt audience.

I used older subdued fabrics so mine doesn’t have quite the modern vibe but maybe with the quilting I could nudge it in that direction…

These are the thoughts that can happen when you let it unfold over days or even more.

Stay tuned.