The quilt as you go experiment: drawing conclusions

Thoughts on quilt as you go. Why I changed my mind and probably won't do it again.

I just finished reading the novel A Discovery of Witches and one particular line from the book really struck me:

It’s a scientist’s prerogative to change his mind as new information comes to light.
— Dehorah Harkness

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Sometimes I think of myself as a quilt scientist. I experiment with different techniques to figure out what I like best and I change my mind a lot.

I thought quilt as you go was going to be amazing because it meant I didn't have to make a giant quilt sandwich and then I didn't have to wrestle that giant quilt sandwich into the tiny harp of my Bernina 350.

I think it's just a case of the grass is always greener on the other side because now that I finished a quilt using the quilt as you go technique, I'm back to thinking the giant quilt sandwich is the better option.

One reason I particularly wanted to try quilt as you go was to match up my back squares to my front blocks on my Half and Half Quilt but in retrospect, I should have done something a little more abstract so it didn't matter so much if it matched or not.

Plus there was so, so much hand sewing involved to get this just right. If I'm going to do that much hand sewing on a quilt again, I might as well hand quilt the thing.

I have a couple more technique ideas to try (and I'm definitely trying them out on a tiny scale like a mug rug before I do a whole quilt again) but so far I can't say that I like the hand sewing part any more or less than I like the basting a giant quilt sandwich part which is why I tried quilt as you go in the first place.