I need variety!

 I've got a friend with a big surgery coming up in a couple of months, so I want to give them a quilt.  When considering my (considerable) UFOs, my plaid string quilt seemed like a good option for them, based on Julie's beautiful creation.

It's up on the design wall and I've completed a few more 9-patches and sashings, but man! Now I remember why I fizzled out with this quilt.  I'm excited about how it is going to look, but it is so boring for me to create.  Part of why I love scrap quilts is that there are so many different fabrics playing together.  With this one, it's just plaid.  I'm gonna do it, but I need something to spice up my sewing stints as well.

Today I finished my January Bee Blocks:

Finished sewing together all of the 2022 Stashbuster blocks that I had precut:

I'm going for a non-traditional holiday quilt look

And worked on this scrappy bear paw variation that I started over winter break:

I also did some purging, identifying some orphan blocks, some fabric and some thread that I plan to take to Swansons to swap out for some quilting scraps, and along the way I unearthed some of the quilts I started hand quilting but never finished.  I need to commit to getting back to them.  There's the one I made for my bed around 15 years ago but never finished:

And this scrap quilt where I was playing with big stitch quilting in a rainbow of colors - I completely forgot this quilt even existed:

There's this mini twister quilt made from salvaged pillowcases:

Completely forgot about this sailboat baby quilt:

And this self-portrait:

There were others, too.  I amaze myself sometimes with how much I DON'T finish!  Time to change that!

With every stitch...

At some point, the tide has GOT to turn!  I can't even make up all the things going wrong in my life right now - it's at the point of being absurd!  But my family, my friends, and my hobbies keep me sane and keep me lifted and keep me going.  Right now, as I begin hand quilting this sailboat baby quilt for a baby who is due to appear in a month's time, I am trying to focus on my many blessings with every stitch.

My family and I are healthy...stitch.

I have a job that I love...stitch.

I am free to make choices in my life...stitch.

The view off my front porch is breathtaking...stitch.

I can sleep late tomorrow if I want...stitch.

There's a pint of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream in the freezer with my name on it...stitch.

Season Three of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries is now on Netflix...stitch.

OK, now I'm getting silly, but I feel better.  When I take a step back and evaluate, that which seems so overwhelming really isn't.  Life may not always go according to plan, but life is good, nonetheless.  Back to stitching.  Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Trying to keep it all in perspective

I tried to laugh at the irony of me at work on Saturday making sailboat quilt blocks...

...while a flood raged in my basement at home.  Oh how the problems keep coming like relentless waves these days, knocking me back down just as soon as I get to my feet.  I spent yesterday reminding myself that these are all first world problems - I have a loving family, supportive friends, a roof over my head and food on the table - but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that all I wanted to do was curl up on the bed and have a good cry.

Instead, I kept active.  Yesterday, in between bailing out the basement with my Wet Vac and arranging for a plumber, I started systematically going through my fabric stash with a merciless eye.  I read recently that having TOO MUCH fabric (gasp! is there such a thing?), can stifle creativity.  I can see how that just might be true in my case; my sewing room is so crowded that I have to move stacks and piles around just to work on a project.  And honestly, scrap quilter that I am, I first go to my precut scraps when it is time to start something new, not to my yardage.  Maybe some of my yardage has to go.  I made it through three (of 13) drawers of fabric, and picked out 28 fabrics that I can live without.  I think. We'll see.  I put them in my ETSY shop, and if they sell, great, I can use some help paying for all the expenses that keep piling up around here.  If not, well, I guess they were meant to stay mine.  So that is my goal, destash another 20-25 fabrics per week and see if that makes a difference in the flow in my creative space.

Ever love a fabric but can't figure out how to use it?

I actually have two pieces of this, so it wasn't so painful to list one.

I've had and loved this for YEARS!  Why, oh why, haven't I used it? 

I have quite a few Judie Rothermel prints; time to share, I guess.

But for now, as the plumber is busy tinkering in the floodwaters of my basement, I'll go make another sailboat block and envision my destination if I could get on board and sail away...

(If you are interested, I'm selling my fabric at a $5/yard basis, $3 shipping for first items and an additional $1.25 shipping for additional items in an order, but only shipping to US.  Check it out.  More fabrics to be listed every week. Sigh.  I'm doing the right thing, right?)

New to me!

Perhaps it's because I've been sewing with the kids during Embroidery Camp this week, but whatever the reason, my quilting mojo is BACK!  I've been exhausted when I get home each day, often in the shop from 8 AM til 7 PM, but no matter - once dinner is done, I've been heading down to my sewing room to work on quilts!  I've made some progress on the sashing and cornerstone blocks for my plaid string quilt and I've got the top half of my blue and white chevron joined into one piece, but that's not all.

First of all, I really want to make this quilt for a friend's new baby.  I happened upon some red and white anchor fabric and wham!  I was inspired to pull and cut fabrics for the whole quilt.  Which, for me, is so far from normal!  I never cut out a whole quilt in advance!  Since I'm usually so scrappy, I just go along piece by piece until a quilt is done.  With the whole thing cut out, it shouldn't take much time at all to get it all pieced together.

EXCEPT...

A friend gave me a bunch of magazines and I fell in love with this Carpenter's Wheel quilt from Spring/Summer 2008 Quilt Sampler.

Love, love, LOVE!!

I love it in all its scrappy and 30s repro glory, but I don't have enough 30s repro fabrics to make it...yet.  I also don't have enough bright white.  But what I DO have is lots of natural/cream muslin and a bunch of civil war repro scraps, all somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 yard.  My brain kicked into gear - what if I made something that WASN'T scrappy?  What if I just picked 8 print fabrics to make the star points and went from there?  Not all the fabrics are actually repros, but close enough.

Can I stand to make a quilt with only 9 fabrics?  Will it hold my interest while piecing?  Will it hold my interest as a finished quilt?  We shall soon find out!

And not only am I using a limited number of fabrics, but I also used the grid method for making HSTs, so I cut all the fabric for the quilt before taking a single stitch.  Again, this is so new to me!  But, I can see how "less scrappy" can also mean "more efficient" when it comes to piecing.  I can't believe how many HSTs I have already done with so little effort!

I've never used this method before, but then, I've never made a quilt that would use so many of the same fabric combo HSTs.  I love how quick and easy this is!

32 HSTs pieced in about 5 minutes?  I love it!  There's no way I could make as many scrappy ones in the same amount of time.

Who knows, I may not like the look once I get all the pieces ready to make a block, and then I'll have a quilt's worth of HSTs left over.  But even so, I guarantee I'll find a use for them somewhere.

I see a lot of piecing ahead in my weekend plans.  How about you?