Hard for me to believe, but I began this blog TWO YEARS AGO TODAY! Woo hoo! Happy Blogiversary to me!
And now, for your chance to celebrate along with me. Please leave a comment on my blog between now and April 5 (another special anniversary for me--the day I became a Mommy!) and I will draw one name from all who take the time to comment.
The winner will receive these 24 FQs of Dutch chintz tone on tone fabrics from this beautiful online shop. Come on - don't be shy! You could be a winner!
I pulled out this old project that has been in a box for over a year. I started this using Moda's Faded Memory charm packs and Miss Rosie's Allemande pattern. This time last year, I had all the small units pieced, but was having a whale of a time getting the blocks together. I was fussing too much over where every piece was placed, and making mistake after mistake keeping the pieces oriented correctly. Sometimes when you get so frustrated, you just need to put something aside. I wanted to work on something Spring-y and this fit the bill. This time I am not fussing over placement and just randomly grabbing pieces. I also figured out a good assembly-line system for getting the pieces together correctly. Now I'm enjoying working on it again! :)
Do you have them, too? Those quilt tops that turned out just "blah"? What do *YOU* do with them?
I had an email conversation with my longarm quilter - her business is beginning to pick up now that she is retired from her 9-5 job (plus, I have given her a number of referrals), and she is trying to work on some sort of scheduling system so she can make sure and accommodate her best customers. That led me to evaluate my stack of quilt tops to try and prioritize what I wanted to bring her after she finishes my orange quilt.
I really don't have that many finished tops - I am not that prolific a quilter, but along with the 8 or 9 that I would like to take for quilting, there were 4 or 5 that are just total duds and to me, not worth the expense of having machine quilted, nor the time it would take for me to do it myself. So what to do with these tops? Is there some organization that I could donate the quilt tops to?
Funny story, I daydreamed all day yesterday about one of my tops that I worked on early in my quilting career. It was called Mail Order Star, and was, I think, a queen sized top. The center of the stars were pieced 25-patch blocks - this quilt took me forever, but I really liked it and was anxious to buy some wide backing fabric and get this one quilted.
Yesterday I came home from work and went to my pile of tops in the spare bedroom. I could not find the Mail Order Star quilt. I dug through the pile again, then checked the rest of the closet and still could not find the quilt. Then it dawned on me that perhaps I had put it in the cedar chest upstairs. Bingo - there it was! I started to unfold the quilt and OMG, it is the most boring and unimaginative quilt I have ever seen - a definite DUD! I made it during my Debbie Mumm period - 100% DM fabrics, which, nothing wrong with that, but there is no interest, no spark. It truly is the most boring quilt ever. Oh and my piecing was so amateur too - star points cut off everywhere. I guess I could use it as an example of "what not to do." But it is kind of fun to revisit one's quilting past.
Another of my earlier quilts is already layered and basted and ready for quilting, although I haven't decided yet if I will take it apart (basted with those plastic tacks) and have the longarm quilter do it instead of me just stitching in the ditch on my machine. I haven't looked closely at the piecing to see how bad it is, but it's still a pattern and fabrics I love (Lady of the Lake blocks with old-old-old K.P. Kids veggie fabrics), so it's a keeper!
Wow - I have not had strep throat since I was a kid and it just completely wiped me out. Thank heavens for an understanding and capable DH who was able to handle the house and kids and allow me to sleep 20-22 hours a day to recover! My body is still weak, but at least I feel healthy and I have a whole slew of backlogged work and new deadlines to face.
I haven't felt like sewing at all. I even let packages of fabric sit for almost a week unopened - imagine that! But I did feel up to an outing on Sunday, so I made a quick trip to my guild's quilt show. It was a little disappointing - only one quilt that made me say "Wow." I guess my heart wasn't into it.
Happy Spring everyone!
I'm going to lose blog readers, but really, I have nothing to blog about. My mom visited last week and I didn't get any sewing done. We had a nice visit, though, and she brought my stepdad's shirts for the memory quilts I plan to make for her and my stepsister Dena. I started cutting out the background fabric, but haven't been able to muster the courage to start taking apart the shirts. I also want to save and do something to embellish the quilts with the buttons from the shirts. Hopefully the mood will strike me this weekend and I can get down to the business of starting this quilt. My mom loves the pattern and the background fabric I chose and I think it will be a good healing project for all of us.
Girl Scout cookie sales are in full swing and my first-year Brownie is leading her troop in sales! Mom has eaten way too many cookies, but yes - I have counted the Weight Watchers points for them (well, mostly....) ;-)
I guess I could have gotten myself outside for a better photo perspective, but this is looking out my back deck this morning. We got about 6" of snow overnight. It's highly unusual for us to get a lot of snow north of Seattle, and this year the kids have missed 7 days of school because of unusual snow activity. Fortunately it warmed up and is mostly gone here, but the kids got to enjoy one more day off playing in the snow.
