Mistakes at Full Speed
There’s something about sweater weather—the soft pull toward cozy warmth, the instinct to gather things in closer—that sparked the making of Cardigan. The idea arrived in a burst of energy: a block-based knit design where the pieces merged into one another, mimicking a knitted sweater. It was cold outside, the air had sharpened, and it seemed like the perfect time to create something comforting.
In that first rush of excitement, I moved fast. I chain-pieced all the units, sure the idea would hold. But when it came time to assemble the quilt top, the seams refused to nest the way I had imagined. (And as someone firmly committed to nesting seams—not pinning them, not pressing them open—this mattered.) What had seemed so simple in my head became a battle at the machine.
The first version, a bold two-color quilt in white and berry, ended up pinned to the design wall, quietly reminding me that ideas and execution don’t always move at the same speed. And yet, even in that frustration, there was something valuable. I started to see that there were opportunities I had missed in my haste—subtle shifts in color, a chance to add movement without sacrificing simplicity.
Rather than walking away, I stayed. I slowed down. I pulled a stack of purples from my resource center and rethought the construction, even adjusting the units to make the seams nest cleanly. I left the navy sections simple, giving the eye a place to rest against the movement of the shifting purples.
Cardigan is, in some ways, the most complicated quilt I’ve designed: a symmetrically asymmetrical layout, six different blocks, carefully planned seam directions, and subtle experiments with color value. It taught me to slow down.
Gracie was there, of course, snoozing as I wrestled fabric, pieced blocks, and finally, stitched the last binding corner closed.
Looking back now, I don’t see the first version as a failure. It was simply what was needed—a step along the way to building a version, and a set of instructions, that someone else could follow without the frustration I ran into. Solving those challenges, and creating a smoother path, ended up being the most satisfying part of all
