Make It Work - Reveal day 12

You heard my trials and tribulations yesterday. I didn't know what I wanted to "make". I knew I wanted to "make" something. During this Dozen Days, on my design wall is pinned an index card with "Make It Work" scribbled on it.  I totally believe in the power of positive thinking.  How many times in this Dozen Days did I use something that existed before, where I had invested time and effort then found a way to Make it Work? Feels good! Was it cause I was thinking of making it work?  I know that being on a deadline also helped creativity and productivity flow, and having permission to fail allowed me to take risks.

Make It Work is Tim Gunn's catchphrase that you hear repeatedly on Project Runway episodes.  As a recovering garment sewer, this show has a special place in my heart!

Tim Gunn clips from PR


In his own words about Make It Work

Tim Gunn's blog

If you want to be surprised, close your eyes right now... but since I know you can't wait (and would just scroll down til you see it) so here is the picture, and then you can sit back and read the story behind it...

So back to my story, here I was with my quiltless day 11 and the need to sew on Day 12.  The "need" is both for the challenge and as a result of the challenge, I'm more connected with my creativity and productivity, sewing time has become part of my routine.  So here I am looking back at the last 10 quilts, thinking, pondering...


Part of me thinks, I should do a new technique today.  But what did I say about thinking yesterday?

Step away from the brain and no one gets hurt! 

So back to feelings, desires, emotions... I want... what do I want? I want a Make It Work, that is more inspiring than my index card... I know that doesn't set the bar very high!  And I have far more light colored labels than I have dark ones, so if I want to play with labels more (AND I DO!!!) I better stick with light colored background.  I already had made "it" on Day 9, I didn't make "it" for this purpose, but I think it was "made" to "work out" for me!

So nowhere in my rules did it say that I couldn't repeat a technique... Nor did I say I couldn't make two quilts that were almost identical.  And it's my game, so if anyone doesn't like my rules, well they can make more strict rules for themselves!

So I built 2 backgrounds - it's fun to play with the labels!  The stickiness of Steam a Seam 2 works great with the labels.  I was on the couch relaxing with my dear hubby, there was a baseball game on and I had my big bucket of labels.  Like building a stone wall, I was adding bits and more bits til I had something pretty substantial, made up entirely of small parts...


I didn't want to make a predictable triptych with the same font.  Plus you may have noticed that the words MAKE and WORK are 4 letter words and you know what that means - yep they take up twice as much space a two letter word... so it's gotta be a smaller font but still needs to have strong impact.  I heard once if you use more than one font, just don't mix san-serif and serif, or was that you should always mix them? and what's a serif? "I shot the serif, but I did not shoot the de-pu-ty"... now Bob Marley has joined in the theme song of the day.   If you want to know more about fonts, there are likely books filled with that info.  :)   But is there some contrast and commonality I ask?  The 2 fonts have a playfulness to them so that's their commonality.  The angles and curves, the size and weight of the font provides the contrast.

I also loved working with Ultra-Suede (now when I think the words "Ultra-Suede", it sounds very much like ... "here I come to save the day...Ul-tra-Suede"  any of you Mighty Mouse fans out there?

So I cut out the words "make" and "work".  Did I not cut out the centers of the a,e and o as a design element or just out of laziness? (it's not just the cutting it out, but I would also need to stitch around those centers)  But seriously, I intended to cut them out, but took a look-see after I cut out the outside and thought, ya know I like it that way.  Ser-en-dipity!  Sounds like a good name for a loveable but ditsy sidekick for my superhero!

When I fused down the "work" I kinda burnt the k - there is some slight darkness on it - dirty iron perhaps?  So that's why I decided I better do some stitching down - used the Free Motion Zig Zag and a Jean 16 needle.

Do you look at your work from 3 distances?  I think we tend to forget the far distance views... But I want to give my quilts the best opportunity to shine, and in a big crowd of quilts, you are likely to pay more attention to those that capture your eye from 20 feet away.

You need to keep their attention once they get up close, but it's the drawing them in that "makes it work".


I hope you have enjoyed this 12x12x12 challenge as much as I have, I'm pondering more lessons learned from this process, so of it I understood right away - other parts are taking more time to sink in.

As always, I wish you fun from A to Z!