Almost Heaven, West Virginia

West Virginia is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been - and I've been lots of places. I love the texture, the colors, the surprising vistas around every curve. Instead of taking the highway today, I took John Denver's "country roads", and what a treat! He was right, it IS almost heaven.

But the joys of my day were overshadowed by sorrow. One of the students that I recruited from West Virginia 4 years ago lost his battle with cancer today. When I got the news, I sat in my car and cried. It isn't that I was particularly close to this boy, but that's what he was, a boy. A brillant, kind-hearted young boy. Had he lived, he'd have graduated from college this coming May, very likely near the top of his class - he was just that smart. When he was diagnosed with cancer last year, he "friended" me on Facebook and sent me a message to let me know what was going on, but also how my husband and I had made an impact on his life. I wish I had kept that message. I honestly never thought that he wouldn't win this battle. He was such a GOOD person, and in my mind, bad things don't happen to good people.

Enjoy Heaven, kiddo. I'm down here in Almost Heaven thinking of you up there.

Reluctant realization

I'm not as liberated a quilter as I'd like to think I am. Sure, my stuff is scrappy; I have no qualms putting a batik next to a repro next to a novelty fabric. Sure, patterns are merely suggestions in my mind, and I rarely do as told. Sure, I think wonky is wonderful, and do not stress over points that don't match or corners that aren't square.


However, I realized today that I am a slave to symmetry. I was playing around, continuing to add to my ERIN quilt, and was careful to make sure that the odd fabric triangles in the 2 rows of green/beige that I added were diagonally opposite each other.

Then, I almost didn't add the bottom row with the 4 Drunkards Path blocks connected by the strips because I didn't have a similar batch of orphans to add to the top of the quilt. Why is symmetry so important to me? Especially in a project like this, which is my version of V's/BumbleBean's "15 Minutes of Play", a vehicle to use up orphans and other scraps of fabric? Here I thought I was so liberated, but as I look back over my creations, I realize I am not. That makes me a little bit sad - it is hard to come to terms with the fact that you are not exactly the way you imagine yourself to be.

So, I'm challenging myself. At some point soon, I'm going to try to make something that is not symmetrical. Please help me hold myself to that challenge.


In the meantime, I was also playing around with all those new scraps of mine, and couldn't resist starting something new, something that could be made with 5" charm squares.

(note that only the right side has been sewn together, which is why the left side looks so wonky)
So far, 50 fabrics have been incorporated into this project, but I think I'm going to have 6 rows of 12 fabrics rather than the 5 rows of 10 fabrics that I have so far. That will leave me with just enough of the white fabric to add a 2" finished border and then that white fabric is all gone - stash busted!

Tomorrow morning, I head off to West Virginia. I wish I could make this weekend last just one day longer. I accomplished all the goals I set out for myself on Friday with the exception of going through the kids' clothes for Goodwill donations. Not bad! Here's hoping that my week on the road is just as productive, if not as creative.

Goals for the weekend

It's Friday, it's Friday!!! Anyone else out there doing a happy dance?


Here are my goals for the weekend:

• Help my son set up his online fundraising site for cub scouts (I HATE fundraising!!!)
• Prepare some hexagons to take with me on next week's 4-day driving trip to West Virginia
• Go through my children's clothes and take a load to Goodwill (and maybe, just maybe, while I am dropping things off, I can take a peek to see if they have anything I want to take home...)
• Continue playing with this to see where it goes next (I see lots of orphan blocks finding a home with this project)

• Finish reading The Geometry of Sisters by Luanne Rice (LOVING it!!!)
• Spend as much time as possible outside, enjoying the end of summer/the advent of autumn
• Hug my family enough to get them (and ME) through next week's separation

Here's hoping your weekend plans include fun and family, too!

Lesson Learned

Every evening, I try to remember to ask my children what they learned that day. Then, I try to remember to ask MYSELF the same thing. Yesterday, I learned two things:

First, you can't help someone who is not willing to help himself. Long story, but a lesson that I needed to learn.

The second thing I learned is that it is easier to be WONKY when you start WIDE. As I promised myself, I delved into my new scraps yesterday. I wanted to make some free-pieced, wonky letters/words, along the lines of Em and Tonya. I found a thin strip of blue in my scrap bag, and then picked one of my new neutral scraps out of my newly purchased scrap bag, and sat down to sew.

It was fun and liberating to just let the letters come together on their own, but I couldn't go as wonky as I wanted because my blue strip was so thin, only about 1" wide. So this is little, about 6"x12", but I've already located two orphan blocks that I want to add to it, and I have a feeling it is going to grow. The perfect project for an evening when I wanted to clear my mind. The border is made from some of my pre-cut 1.5" squares.

But the lesson learned - next time I make free-pieced words (and there WILL be a next time), I will start WIDE and be WONKY as all get out!

What have you learned lately?

I want to be at home playing with scraps!

Not at work trying to wade through the mountain of work that piled up while I was gone. At lunchtime, I took out my $5 scrap bag from my visit to the quilt shop yesterday to see what I ended up with.

Colors

Neutrals

And probably my favorite of the bunch (well, today's favorite, anyway)

I hope there are leftovers in the fridge, 'cause I plan to do some serious quilting therapy this evening!

Georgia on my mind

Here I sit in Charlotte Douglas Airport again, Gate E6 this time, awaiting my flight home. My trip to Georgia was quite the rolleroaster ride, and I am anxious to return to the familiar chaos that is my own life. I’m glad that my first trip of travel season is a short one, it helps me ease back into being apart from my family.

I spent Saturday night with my quilting buddy, Nancy, who moved away from Virginia in June and whose absence I feel acutely. She has a lovely home, and I’m sure you can understand my delight to sleep under a not one, but two scrappy Sunbonnet Sue quilts that her mother and grandmother made.

My visit with her was much too short, but this was a work trip after all, so Sunday afternoon found me on my way to my first college fair of the trip. Unfortunately, my materials weren’t on their way to the fair with me – the parcel delivery service (which will remain nameless) ignored the extra money I paid for Saturday delivery, and did not deliver my package. In fact, they LOST my package, and when they finally found it on Monday, they wanted me to pay an additional fee to ship it to another address. You know those cartoon characters with steam coming out of their ears? That was me.

But Sunday's fair went fine anyway, and that night I spent catching up with some of my best girlfriends, Celisa and Nikki. True and enduring friendships are such a blessing. We may not see each other for months or even years at a time, but we always just pick up right where we left off when we are together again.

Monday consisted of two more fairs, followed by dinner with a colleague – a long day that began when I left Celisa's house at 7:30 AM and ended when I returned at 9:30 PM. Today, there was another college fair, and then two high school visits. After that, what did I have but a couple of hours to spare before my 8 PM flight out of Atlanta to Charlotte. You know what that means…time to visit a quilt shop!

The closest shop to me was Little Quilts in Marietta, GA. I loved the entry,

and everything I saw inside. True to their name, there were lots of small quilts. I loved this little cutie

One thing that really impressed me was that many of the shop samples were hand quilted – I find that most often shop samples are either just quilt tops or are machine quilted. It was a treat to see so much hand stitching. Check out this little scrappy beauty, not just hand quilted but hand embroidery stitches as well.

But my favorite part of this shop was this treasure chest tucked away in the corner – scraps, beautiful scraps!!!

I plopped right down on the floor and got to digging through my version of “treasure”. They had a “fill a baggie for $5” deal, so I got a bag and had a ball.

In addition to scraps, I got lots of ideas - name quilts

Picnic quilts

And different style hats for Sunbonnet Sue.

If you are ever in Marietta, I encourage you to stop by Little Quilts – there is something for everyone, not just quilters, but those who work in wool, embroidery, hooking, etc. In fact, when I walked in the door, I overheard one woman joke to another, "I'm a hooker AND a stripper!" My kind of shop!

On the road, again!

Travel season has begun! I am posting from gate E24 at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, awaiting my flight to Atlanta. Thank heavens for airports with free Wi-Fi! Of course, I have 3 books with me, but that's what I do on the plane. I hate to run out of reading material before the end of my trips, so I ration out my reading accordingly. I also have my 4th of July Tablerunner to quilt (big sigh of relief when my needles and scissors made it through security), but I thought I'd check out what was happening in blogland, first.

Besides, I got 3 (almost uninterrupted) hours of sewing in yesterday afternoon, putting the blocks from my Great Great Grandmother's Quilt into a top. Ta-da!

I love it! This is a quilt top that will definitely become an honest-to-goodness quilt sooner, rather than later.

I finished sewing it together just in time to make it to the tail end of our Quilt Guild Business Meeting (there were some very satisfying 'oohhhs' and 'aahhhs' during Show and Tell when I held this flimsy up - I'm not above wanting my work to be liked by others!), and in plenty of time for our featured speaker, Mrs. Jane Hall, foundation piecing expert. She brought quilts and slides and her sense of humor. She was prepared; I was not. I brought my camera case, but the camera was at home next to my computer. Doh!

Luckily, you can see her quilts on her website. My favorite that she brought last night was one of her most recent, Vinas Viejas.

You really have to see it in person to appreciate the complexity, though. Those borders have so much depth and texture because they are PIECED! Just awesome! I enjoyed her talk, and am envious of those in my guild who are doing an all day workshop with her today while I fritter away my time in the airport. Just know that there is a workshop that I WILL NOT MISS - Bonnie Hunter is coming to our guild in February. I don't care what is happening in the world of college admissions on that day - I will be at that workshop! (OK, everyone, all together now, knock on wood.)

Going on this trip today is not all bad. Tonight, I will be staying with my quilting buddy, Nancy, who moved away in June. On Sunday and Monday night, I'll be staying with one of my buddies from back when I lived in Atlanta, and one night will be Girls Night Out with my twin sister's college roommate who has been a friend of mine for many years. And I don't have to cook, clean, taxi anyone around, etc for 4 whole days! Both boys mock-cried and clung to me when I left this morning, but they'll be fine. And I'll be back home on Tuesday night, and our reunion will be sweet all around!