I imagine that the person charged with selecting the first song on an album has a hard job. I mean obviously not in the same way that being a paramedic is hard, but still, it is probably an arduous task to make sure that the first song is dynamite. Think about it, there is a lot of pressure for the first song to set the vibe for everything that follows and capture your immediate attention. In case it isn’t obvious, I am a whole record listening kind of gal. I tune in from start to finish. I appreciate the cover art and I always read the liner notes. There is an unquantifiable pleasure that comes from listening to an entire album, especially in these days of consolidated commercial radio and super hyped singles. I believe there will always be a smattering of folks like me dedicated to whole album consumption.
My rumination on first song selection happened while I listened to Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever album. The always popular song “Free Fallin'” is one of those knock your socks off first songs, that still gets airtime on blah corporate drugstore radio channels in exotic locales such as Central WA state. Yet this song is basically just an appetizer for the whole course of the album, like don’t fill up because there are still 11 more songs to go. There are countless examples of whoa, here we go first songs; “Smells like Teen Spirit” is another I am partial to. It is no surprise that many first songs also happen to become the most popular song off an album. Now I didn’t do an ounce of research here, but given the 2 aforementioned examples, I feel confident in my assertion. And while “Free Fallin'” is both outstanding and remains a beloved song (not just in chain store pharmacies!), there are several other mega hits on the album such as “Runnin’ Down a Dream”, “I Won’t Back Down” and “Yer So Bad” that could have been selected as numero uno. Thinking about why song one is song one made me realize that there is a lot of intention in placing a song in that premier space. Or maybe there isn’t. Could it be that the course of an album is decided by numbers drawn from an empty coffee cup?
Free Fallin’ the quilt was originally intended to live its life as a set of four placemats. The initial idea used leftover fabric from previous projects to create a strip quilt design. However, once I placed a couple dinner plate size blocks next to each other on my design wall, I saw the huge potential for both a primary and secondary quilt design. Oh I literally gasped in surprise! Thus began the mad scramble to find enough fabric in my stash to turn placemats into a lap quilt. Like most surprises, it involved quite a bit of luck to eek out a blanket using the minimal resources available. And while this strip piecing process yields awesome results, it is also a total fabric muncher. Each of these strips are made from 1 1/2 inch WOF (width of fabric) lengths, then pieced together and cut into a triangle shape. The problem with making these strips so small is that I lost ONE THIRD of my fabric to seam allowances at two 1/4inch seams per strip. Ugh! There was a lot of hoping and finger crossing and in the end, it all worked out just fine. But you can bet that next time I make a quilt using this method, I will have ample fabric on hand and my strips will be wider to account for the seam allowances.
Now let’s detour for a moment and talk about perfectionism. My paycheck is dependent upon accuracy and minute details, and no I am not a surgeon. Therefore during my free time, that perfectionism is locked in a vault because it is exhausting. Quilting (unlike clothing sewing) allows for the imperfect to shine. In fact most of the quilts and quilters I adore create imperfect quilts. That said, because of the strong fabrics in this quilt design, I spent an inordinate amount of time rearranging (ugh, and seam ripping apart) blocks to ensure that the colors were dispersed evenly. And after all of that time and consternation, the hilarious thing is that when I was nearly finished with the very last step of binding, I noticed two strips that should not have been placed next to one another. Yet I did not see this the whole time I sewed the top together, nor during the many, many hours I spent hand quilting. There is a lesson here, should I choose to accept it.
I chose Tom Petty for this quilt’s tunes because he was a huge part of my adolescent soundtrack. Gee, what a saccharine cliché! This almost-placemat-set quilt was made for a friend from that era, which reminds me of how damn lucky I am to have friendships in midlife that formed back when I had to remember a locker combo. It is true that Tom was everywhere, in our cars, at sleepovers, and always in the coffee shops where we loitered. Because of Tom Petty’s ubiquity, I know all of these albums by heart, even though my stereo typically blasted heavier fare. The quilters reading this post will take one look at this design and think, yuck that must have been a lot of ironing. Well, thankfully Tom kept me company at the ironing board and his records are ageless.
Free Fallin’ was a very fun quilt to make — obsessive block changing and seam ripping aside. I was gobsmacked by the secondary design that emerged from the blocks! Upping the awesome factor is that this whole quilt is made of pieces from other projects: the Allen Toussaint quilt “Happiness”, Queen “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and Lucinda Williams “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”. My favorite part of hand quilting something is being able to spend time with a quilt and infuse it with extra love. I am thrilled that this quilt will go to a beautiful dear friend, to comfort her after long days working in public health. Actually everyone who works in health care, education and grocery stores deserves a quilt after the hellish last few years. What we need is a national Quilt Corps! Surely blankets are something we can all agree on, right? But I digress. Each and every project I make is incredibly special and the fact that I can turn around and pass this gift on is the best thing ever.
Never forget that “you belong somewhere you feel free”. RIP Tom.
Albums listened to: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Wildflowers, Full Moon Fever, Into the Great Wide Open, Live at the Coliseum; Tuba Skinny Magnolia Stroll; Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns Lucky Devil, Indigenous Things We Do; Hurray for the Riff Raff The Navigator; Andrew Duhon Songs I Wrote Before I Knew You; Mother Love Bone self titled album; Temple of the Dog self titled album; The Black Keys Delta Kream; lots and lots of WWOZ.
Quiltunes 