gifted

Last Friday I had the joy of watching two friends get married - it was a wonderful day full of love, and I was so happy to be a part of it.

I was also so happy to see my friends' faces when they found out I had made them a quilt - turns out they had been hoping for just that gift! :)

A scrappy-trip, one of my absolute favorite patterns (and the only one I've made more than once!) in a rainbow of colors to celebrate joy and love, with deep hues to keep it manly :)   My final finish of 2016 is a good one.

A Christmas Finish!

Just in time!  Got this baby quilted, bound and washed with a couple of days to spare!



I love it.  I love when I have an idea and it ends up looking the way I imagined, and this one is perfect.  A riot of color and clashy bright fabrics all come together to make an awesome Christmas quilt.  Merry Christmas!

sew my stash 2017

I've always been a planner.  When someone asks me where I see myself in five years, I can give them the next twenty.  I'm  always thinking about the next year, the next week, the next day.  But while there are some definite positives that come from thinking about the future, I fail to spend enough time in the present.  Here, now, today; this hour, this minute, this second.  And because of that, the future that I spend so much time planning doesn't always end up being what I actually want.  We've been talking about our future, and making some plans, and as part of that I've been thinking about what I really want in life.

And this has led me to think a lot about stuff.  As in things.  Belongings.  Actual, physical stuff.  We have a lot of it.  I downsized my wardrobe recently, thinking about what I actually wear and like.  I now own a tiny fraction of the clothes I used to have, and instead of feeling like I have nothing to wear (as I frequently did before), I always know just what to wear.  It is so much easier to just choose from a few things that I actually like - no more thinking that I should wear something more fashionable or something I didn't wear just last week.  Just wearing what I like, eliminating the stress and the guilt and the doubt.  

And so I'm going to do the same thing with my fabric.  Kind of.  I have so. much. fabric.  I love some of it.  A lot of it actually.  Some of it not so much.  But instead of using it, instead of focusing on what I have, I am constantly adding to it, frequently avoiding using my favorites because "what if I run out?".  

I started my floating colors quilt to use my much loved and long-hoarded Anna Maria Horner fabrics. But as soon as I started cutting into them, I panicked.  I starting buying more AMH fabric, because I might run out! And as I've been stockpiling in the last couple months, I've noticed that my sewing room is increasingly stressing me out.  I'm not finding joy in the stacks of beautiful fabric.  I'm finding guilt.  The excess is overwhelming me -- despite spending a fair amount of my free time sewing, I'm not even close to making a dent in my stash.  

So for 2017, I will be sewing my stash.  And, because I like experiments and data, I've made a spreadsheet broken down in the same way I organize my fabric - mostly by color, with some "special" fabrics separated by other factors.  I've inventoried yardage and weighed my scraps.  I've been horrified at the amount of yardage I've estimated.   I've spent some time thinking about potential problems and have worked out some rules for myself, and I've spent December frantically buying a few more things just in case.   And now I am looking forward to January, and to 2017, and to this chance to learn more about myself as I focus on what I already have, instead of only thinking about the future.

thisclose

When I started working on floating colors, I set aside my liberty quilt.  I was SO close to being done with the blocks, I even cancelled my monthly Liberty subscription because I knew I had enough diamonds left to finish the blocks.  And so to find some motivation again, I laid out what I have so far.

There are a few blocks that are not going to make the final cut.  Since I need several half-blocks to fill out the edges, I may unpick the center seams on a few of them to use on the outside.  And some may just be worked into the back.  Or destined to end up in the orphan block bin...

And I have made a couple more blocks that I love.

Seeing how close I am to a top has motivated me, sort of.  I've made a deal with myself that I need to sew at least one of these blocks a week, but I'm aiming for two.  Especially because these eight sets represent the last blocks I need to choose a final layout and start stitching together the top.

#christmasonacid

Well I didn't meet my goal to finish this quilt by December 1st.  But sometimes you have to prioritize a quilt for someone else over a quilt for yourself.  And I think I've made enough  progress on my #christmasonacid quilt that I can get it done before Christmas!

I found this fabulous clashy-bright dot fabric at JoAnn, and it is just perfect for my aesthetic for this quilt.  I have always thought there is such a thing as "ugly beautiful" - something about things that shouldn't work together, or things that aren't pretty on their own... but when they come together they somehow make something that is just beautiful.  

And so I pieced together a back, leaving enough of the dot to make binding.  And I quilted it in a simple cross hatch, one of my favorites.  Now to trim, bind, and get it ready for Christmas!

oops

So I broke my rule already -- I started another quilt.  BUT this one is a gift, with a deadline.  So it will be finished before the end of the year.   Some friends are getting married at the end of December, a date they chose in part due to uncertainty about what 2017 will hold.  And as I process my jumble of feelings at the end of this year, making them a quilt out of a rainbow of colors to celebrate love has seemed like something I can actually DO.  And so I picked fabrics, and cut strips. 

Using the scrappy trip tutorial from Bonnie Hunter, I quickly sewed strips together and then sub-cut, pressed and sewed again.

And in what seems like no time, I have a quilt top!  The scrappy trip is the only quilt pattern I have ever made more than once, and I still love it each and every time.  Now to get it basted, quilted, bound and ready to be gifted.