Why Did I Make This Quilt Top?

I just  finished this throw quilt top this afternoon.  It's going to be a UFO for at least three months.  I have enough of the fabric that is the outside border for the back so my usual reason for not quilting a top doesn't exist -- usually I don't know what to use on the back and often have to shop for something appropriate.

All afternoon I've been saying to myself, I shouldn't have made this.  I like the colors and it came out reasonably square, but I have no need for it and the colors don't actually go anywhere in my home.  Why did I put this much time into it?  The answer is because I am an impulse quilt maker. Many very sensible quilters carefully plan what they are going to make, shop for the perfect fabrics and work very hard to make wonderful, possibly heirloom quilts.  Not me.  I stash fabric I like and even fabrics that were a mistake to purchase.  This fabric was a mistake even though I still like the colors.

The whole thing came together on impulse.  I bought the fabric on sale and thought it would make a good Bethany Reynolds style stack-n-whack quilt. I love watching those designs take form as I sew them.  I picked up, free, at my guild's share table, a printed kaleidoscope muslin with 16 blocks and four small corner blocks.  I love paper pieced work and this was nearly the same.  So one day I got started cutting the triangles which is when I learned that the fabric was not quite accurately printed so it became impossible to have really perfect centers of the blocks.  And the circles were very repetitious.  I'm happy to see that in the photo they look less repetitious than I thought.

When I had made the blocks I realized I needed hot pink as an accent color because it would be very boring with just back stripping, so I bought a yard of the pink and it was a good decision.  I hope I have enough left to bind the finished quilt, if not, I'll get aqua bias binding.  So there it is, ready to be folded into a bag with the backing until I finish the quilt I'm working on for our guild show in August, as well as the small red and white quilt, not even begun that I also said I would have ready for the guild's challenge at the show.  Being an impulse quilter  sometimes makes me do some personal stock taking.  But I've admitted enough faults for one day.