Are your chairs lonely?

As a quilter, I tend to find it a bit challenging to incorporate my quilts in my home decor because:

a. I am a dishaholic – my plates and other things compete with my quilts for wall space

b. I am very particular about what goes on the walls

c. I am very indecisive about what goes on the walls – it takes months for me to decide on anything

So, my favorite way to display my quilts without having to involve the walls is to simply neatly fold the quilts (that’s important to me) and drape the quilts over my wingback chairs! I admire and love the look of how quilts flow in a free-form way and drape casually over chairs in magazines, but somehow I can’t stand that in my own house. Back to my original point, draping quilts over chairs allows me to change out the quilts with the seasons, and it also allows me to actually use the quilts when I am relaxing in the chairs.

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I am showing you how my neatly folded “Kitty Kollage” is draped over my chair. This quilt is my favorite scrappy applique quilt to-date simply because I haven’t done that many applique quilts. It has over 50 different fabrics – did I have fun picking out those fabrics!

This quilt had appeared in the 2007 Spring Issue of “Quilting and Embroidery” presented by Creative Machine Embroidery. I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful editor on my very first published quilt (thanks, Annette!). My multi-talented husband drew the kitten pattern for me. He also often acts as my color consultant, and in this case, he picked out the blue sashing to give the quilt an extra “oomph” and set all the colors off in a very complimentary way:

The kittens were appliqued by using traditional method, while the flowers were by machine embroidery. My favorite part of the quilt is the flower quilting motif that appears at various places through the quilt. I hope you are able to see it:

Since I have only quilted a little more than two and half years while working as an engineer in research for most of that period of time, I don’t have an extensive collection of quilts suitable for draping over chairs. So, this darling quilt would probably stay draped on that chair for the rest of spring and summer. I might need to make a fall quilt so my chair won’t feel too lonely when the kitties are gone come fall. Hmmmm…. definitely an idea worth pursuing, don’t you think?

So, are your chairs lonely? Try keeping them company with a throw, a quilt, an afghan or a blanket that you have kept in your closet and see how your chair becomes invitingly comfy and homey instantaneously. I would love to know if you too drape stuff over your chairs.

A final disclaimer: there is of course not a correct way to drape – neatly (and symmetrically, I might add) folded like mine or free-flowing like in the magazines. Till next time! :)