You know how a dog can seem perfectly happy then see a squirrel and any other thought flies out of its head, replaced by “Must chase squirrel!!!!”?
Here’s my squirrel today.
It really needed chasing. I tried really hard to stay focused but then my green thread ran out while I was quilting the tree skirt and I gave in and started cutting into the project I really wanted to be chasing.
Don’t worry, focused hand quilting will continue in the evenings!
I’ve been going in too many different directions lately and mentioned to my blogging friend Deb that I had too many ideas/projects and couldn’t focus. She promptly challenged me to pick one project to get done by the end of November, and she would do the same.
Oh boy. How to choose? In the end I settled on finishing my son’s next bed quilt. If you’ve been following a while you’ll know it’s been in the works for a long time. The piecing went pretty quickly, but the hand quilting has been accomplished in fits and starts over starting in May 2014. It’s time to get it done!
As you can see, it just needs one more little push. The center has about 3 evenings of work left, then it’s all borders, with very simple quilting planned.
Here’s the thing about hand quilting. I love the look of it. I love the quiet stitching when I’m doing it. I just have trouble making that quiet “me” time, away from computers and designs and patterns in progress, a priority. So, thank you Deb for prodding me in that healthy direction!
As a bonus, my son’s smile is growing wider every time he sees me sit with his quilt and it gets closer to being done.
Minions! I tried to talk myself out of bringing some home, but somehow they are here. I have the panel too, so I can make the Minion quilt from the Sept/Oct 2015 issue of Quiltmaker.
I need a quick, just for fun project and this fits the bill. The fabric is already all cut up, ready to toss on the design wall tomorrow and then I can just spend a few hours sewing. The only stressful thing about this one will be mediating who gets to use it when we all sit down to watch a movie together!
I started going into sewing withdrawal the first part of October. It hadn’t been terribly long since I sewed, but it felt like it as other things needed attention. The last few days I sewed and blithely ignored anything else. Ahh! I feel better now!
This isn’t what I planned top work on, but after teaching a class on this quilt I put all the pieces up on my design wall. They sat there all week and I finally decided to just sew the top since the pieces were all laid out already. I didn’t really feel like it, as I have made a few versions of this already, but by the time I had a few rows together I was excited about the quilt again. It is too purple for at least one member of the family, but I like how it is turning out! I will add a 1/2” border from scraps of the blue/green stars, and finish up with a wider border of purple scraps.
I think it will make a fine new cover quilt for my Sparkling Trail pattern. The current cover quilt in red and green makes people think it is a Christmas quilt. That’s perfectly OK, but it can be so much more! (Remember the 1930’s prints version, and the elegant black and red one? And of course, the original, the string version) I’m also thinking about doping a negative version, with assorted “modern” prints in the background and “low volume” text prints in the stars. I have my eye on Moda’s Modern Backgounds at the shop…
First, there’s a new fall quilt in the making. I popped into the shop on my way home from doing groceries yesterday. I thought it would be a quick visit because I thought I knew just what I wanted. Hmm. I came out with fabric for 2 quilts and pushed the limit on how long the groceries could keep in the car. I think everything is still safe to eat. Thank goodness I had the good sense to not buy ice cream!
Working in the quilt shop has encouraged me to stretch a little bit in the colours I use. Half the floor space at the Quilting Connection is dedicated to fabrics grouped by colour, plus batiks. It’s my favourite side of the store, but somehow I always gravitated to the same part. There is a lot of blue in my stash!
A few weeks ago a customer requested help choosing purple, blue and green. Lots of purples and just a few light blues and greens. Yum! Those colours stacked together on her cart looked scrumptious.
This isn’t her collection, but when I needed fabric for the class I am teaching on Saturday, I headed for the purple, blue and green batiks. I’m going to cut some up today, more in class tomorrow to demonstrate cutting 60 degree angle, and start putting together another version of Sparkling Trail as I teach how to make it. We’ll see how I do with purples!
Next up, yellows and orange, unless my daughter changes her mind about what she would like in her next quilt!
