“It looked like a good thing, but wait till I tell you.” So begins O. Henry’s classic and hilarious story, “The Ransom of Red Chief“.
This line went through my head many times while designing, sewing and writing Gecko Chase.  I thought a few other classic phrases like, “How hard can it be?” and “Stop, you’re making it worse!”. Perhaps you have thought them, too, or it is just me?
It all started with an email from Timeless Treasures. Did I want to submit a pattern for an upcoming fabric collection? My heart leapt when I spotted, tucked in the rest of fabrics photos, this set of green and purple batiks.
Come, my friends, off to EQ8 (quilting software)!
“How hard can it be?”. Design a quilt that is fresh and interesting and unique?  Ba! This stage requires much back-and-forth, set-aside and try-again. Notice that I went through 46 DIFFERENT designs? Crazy what I will do for lovely fabrics and perfect layout. Cuckoo bananas.
I got a thumbs up from Timeless Treasures and a box a fabric! Squeeeee! Swoon! Faint!
Next up, sew and write the pattern. How hard can it be?
Er, um, I meant, next up – trail and error and a couple unplanned dates with a seam ripper. Yea, that’s exactly what I meant.
*See the problem was I THOUGHT all the green stripes were the same. They were NOT. Keep that in mind when you make the pattern. Just saying…
With all the blocks completed, I was ready to lay it out and piece the top. Woo hoo! Piece of cake, right? I have made dozens of quilts. It will only take a minute…
Wait, now this one goes over here…and that purple goes this way…mercy, better check the pattern again.
*Keep the pattern handy. And by that I mean actually IN YOUR HAND. Just saying…again.
I cannot express my joy at adding the last border and shipping this baby off to the quilters. Whew!
I then let my pattern testers find all my mistakes, er, I mean, add the finishing touches…yep. Just a little dusting was all it needed. After 2 TOTAL rewrites, I was ready to add a cover shot.
How hard can it be? It is not very windy. It should be fine. (More classic lines.)
Perfect…exactly what I had in mind…
But, this classic and hilarious tale has a happy ending. Actually, it has a few. I learned…
- Â How to make triangles accurate and square – mystery solved!
- Â How to cut and square these what-was-I-thinking-angles, er, um, non-standard angles.
- How to make a random quilt – harder than it looks, my friend!
And I included all this quilty learnin’ in a lovely finished pattern! Boogie, oggie, oggie!
Gecko Chase First Friday for $5 is THIS Friday, July 13th, 2018. The sale is for 24 hours MST so grab it right away at my website. After that, the price is $12.
Consider it your chance to learn from all my mistakes…and make a unique and beautiful quilt.
Thanks for reading, hope it was a blessing. See you next time.
Jenny Kae
P.S. Shout-outs to my picture-taking hubby, my pattern-testers, my graphics genius, Anne and Timeless Treasures. Y’all are awesome. Thank you!
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