How do you process strong emotions or lock-in important memories? If you’re like me, you make quilts. Right now, I’m grieving the loss of a musical genius and fellow creative.
Like a lot of my friends and people around the world last week who learned of Prince’s passing, I didn’t want to believe it. It took a few hours and finally a report by the BBC to drive it home. How could he be dead? The guy is immortal.
Seriously… anyone who can produce music at the rate that he does – at least one album a year, sometimes three – can’t die until all the music has poured out of them.
And so there was no need for me to make a #princefan quilt before now… like a lot of quilters say to themselves, I have plenty of time to make that quilt, to use that fabric… or like I say to myself when I’m being a hermit, I have plenty of time to hang with my friends, to call my mom, to do those things on the list that never seem important enough to really do.
Prince said, “Life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant to last.” So… let’s get this party started. I’m going to make a quilt to remember him by. I mean, of course I have his music – that’s really the immortal part, right? – but I think a quilt is just a way for me to express my grief outward. It’s what I know how to do.
Of course, when I walked into the studio, I was confronted with this mess:
So nothing can really begin if you can’t see the top of the cutting table, so I had to clean that off first.
Anyone who knows me moderately well knows that I’m not really a fan of purple, and that I am a huge fan of Kona solids. So when it came to pulling fabrics to make this quilt, it wasn’t really surprising that I could find exactly four print fabrics – 1 fat quarter, 1 sort-of purple print of a white background with purple flowers, one 3/4 yard cut of a batik dot, and a 1-yard ombre.
My solids collection, on the other hand, is a lot more extensive:
Do you want to make this quilt with me? I don’t know if I’m going to write a pattern or not, but I’m definitely going to be blogging about it and including tutorials. If you feel like making your own #tributetoaprince quilt, and you don’t have a ton of purple solids in your stash, I’ve got a fat quarter collection listed in the shop that you can buy if you want.
The included fabric is enough to make a 52″ x 65″ quilt (approximately) with borders. I’m going to go bigger I think… and I would say, if you want to go bigger, look through your stash of purple fabrics and feel free to add them in.
The quilt is a pretty basic Thousand Pyramid pattern; if you have a 60-degree triangle ruler, you should be perfectly fine to make this. You can get one in my shop if you don’t have one.
I’m using 4″ finished triangles, so as best as I can tell, I can get 18 triangles from each fat quarter. If you make bigger or smaller triangles, your mileage will vary.
Later in the week I’ll post progress on the cutting.
I’m in. Although I’ve been taking electric guitar lessons for a couple of years now, I think I’m much more prepared to sew a tribute, rather than play one (see Prince’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” solo for a great example). I’ve ordered the fat quarters and will start pulling my stash. I have not made a thousand pyramid, but I have admired your previous blog on it, and look forward to the journey.