Happy Fourth of July!

Cross Stitch design by Susan Ache from her "Summer Memories" book.

And a happy 250th birthday to the United States of America!  May we unify to work towards all the promises that inspired its founding.

How Quilters Celebrate "Star Wars" Day:

This is how the Sci Fi fans do it.  Either way enjoy!  

Hey June!

The post title refers both to Gudrun Erla's latest GE Designs Quilt Along coming up this weekend (and yes, I look forward to taking part in it!) and also a return to the blog after a too long away break.  I never expected after posting daily in April for Frédérique's  ABC Quilt Challenge that I would not have posted anything more for almost two months!  Admittedly though, after focusing on the blog for all of April, life pushed its way back in for May and June and kept me too preoccupied to post.  

For starters, the weekend before the last day of the challenge was the opening day for our community garden's 2021 growing season.  Each year we hold a parade and opening day activities in partnership with the Little League whose fields are next door to our garden.  There was also a pop-up pantry distribution set up outside our two lots that day.  

The report on the day's events from our community paper.

In addition, this is a big Mayoral election year in NYC (I voted in the primary this morning) and there was also an election for new terms for the people serving on our community's Co-op Board.  So there were plenty of city and community candidates at the garden event and then many candidate forums to attend (virtually) or watch in the weeks that followed. 

In the first week of May, DH and I picked up the plants ordered from Grow NYC for our community garden.

Among them (left front corner of the cart) are this year's plant starts for our community garden to grow Serrano Peppers for Small Axe Peppers.  What we grow and harvest will go towards making their Serrano Hot Sauce.  For the last three years we have been one of many community gardens in our city that are paid to grow peppers for the company.  In the last couple of years the company has also expanded their community garden growers program nationally.  Our garden uses our earnings to buy the sauce at cost which we then sell as a fundraiser at our garden events.  

This year, our garden has also been hosting the Ecology Club of a new charter school in our community.  They first visited us back in April and then set up to come on Friday afternoons since the start of May and until the school year ends in June.  We gave them their own garden bed to use as a growing lab and they help us with general garden maintenance tasks.  I and another member supervised them in helping to plant the pepper plant starts we had picked up.  

May also meant many celebration days too with Mother's Day and a milestone birthday for me (the big 6-0!).  June brought in Father's Day and the same big birthday for my DH.  Also in May, I got to make my first post-vaccination, in-person, overnight weekend visit to a good friend in New Jersey (who had also celebrated the same milestone birthday this year). We had a good time that weekend only marred by having our car engine seize up when DH came out to pick me up!   

The good news is that it turns out to be a known issue with our model of car and the company covers replacement of the engine under a warranty.  So while the repairs cost us nothing, the weeks it took to get a new engine and get it installed wound up completely upending our plans to travel down to my MIL's in North Carolina for DH's two week vacation that we had scheduled for this month.  We were supposed to spend his birthday weekend down there but alas that did not come to be!  

The worse part was that the cancellation of our trip meant that the second Quilt Retreat my MIL and I had looked forward to having during our stay was also nixed!  So all this goodness will have to be unpacked and put to use at home in the coming weeks instead.

All packed up for a retreat and no way to go!

This is not to say I haven't sewn or quilted at all during this time --- how else would I keep my sanity with all of this going on?!?  I do have a few finishes (one is in the picture above and another that I'm am working on now) that I'll hopefully get to report in a "Finished Or Not Friday" post later this week.  There's also a lot of stuff that I want to spend this week catching up on.  

So there will be plenty more things to report on as the summer continues to unfold.  Here's to hoping that the rest of the summer can be just a little more "quilt focused" going forward!

Some Thoughts On the Word of the Year.....

As we head into the second quarter of the year, I thought I'd take some time to reflect on my Word of the Year.  For me, the word this year is PLANNING.

                    

For a few years now, I've been trying to understand how I get my projects from beginning to end and improve how efficiently I can do that.  The goal is to minimize frustration and procrastination.  Doing so allows me to actually get that "More Projects Than I Have Lifetime" list closer to being accomplished!  I've come to learn that project overload doesn't help that process although I can't say that I don't keep doing it anyway (my RSC 2021 project list is a prime example of that)!  However, not feeling like I am being buried by the overload means having a good understanding of what can be done in a given amount of time. 

I've learned that part of that is planning.  First you have to know what you want to do, then you have to truly understand what it takes to do it.  In the words of Jessica Able, it's understanding whether something is a Task or a Project.  

And this is posted in my quilt space to remind me of that!

I have been guilty in the past of thinking something is a Task (Oh, I just have to make 30 of  those blocks) but only when I start to try to tackle it, do I it realize it's actually a Project (Oh, to make 30 blocks, I have to cut 300 specific pieces and then sew sub-units, then sew sub-sections and then sew the sections together to make the blocks).  Got to say that was an eye opener!  Understanding that in advance reduces the number of curse words or minimizes the project depression (aka slogging) that happens later.  

It also means that if I don't make a deadline, I know why instead of feeling like I failed.  January was a case in point.  I was thrilled with what I did get done yet it was no where near the complete list of things I had wanted to accomplish for the month.  Yet pretty much everything that I fully evaluated and mapped out did get done.  When things didn't get done in the time expected, I could usually point to where I either did not break down the tasks far enough or that I did not evaluate just how many tasks needed to be completed each day in order to meet the desired goal.  As a result, the year started out on an up note instead of a downer.

While it may sound like a lot of trouble to go to for a hobby, I admit I truly like what I get to do, what comes out of it and want to be able to do even more.  So if I'm going to make myself happy, I gotta know what it takes to be happier!  As Bonnie Hunter has shared with us:   

Because.....

Nothing backs up a good life lesson better than a quilt!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In a big nod to planning, starting tomorrow, I'm going to take up Frédérique's (of the Quilting Patchwork and Applique blog)  A to Z Quilt Challenge for the month of April.  After quilting for almost twenty years (January 2022 will be my anniversary!), I realize the breadth of my complete fascination with quilting really has run the gamut from A to Z!  With the topics already mapped out, look forward to daily (except for Sundays) posts on the world of quilting from my perspective.  Should be fun!

The Seven Days of New Year's 2020: Day 4 - 6: Trip Review but Aborted Sewing

Be forewarned:  This is a long one, text heavy and a little sad, although there is a some quilty news in the middle.

You know what they say about the best laid plans?  The plan for Day 4 was the doctor's appointment that had been rescheduled to the morning and some grocery shopping on the way home.  Both were accomplished and once back home the agenda was a break for lunch and a check of email and then back to the sewing.  

However while I was checking email I got a text from my MIL.  She was feeling very lonely since I had left two weeks ago.  The reason I had taken the chance of traveling all the way to North Carolina where she lives despite the pandemic fears regarding holiday travel was that early in November her husband  had passed after a three year battle with cancer (brain and prostate) and a stroke.  It was a second marriage for them both and they had been happily married for 24 years.  

After multiple surgeries, he had been released from a rehab center during the visit to her that I, my husband and oldest son made back in October of 2019.  The rehab agency had consigned her husband just to home hospice care.  My MIL had fought to continue with the occupational and physical therapy he had received while convalescing at the center.  Because of her efforts, rather than just being bed ridden, he had been able to continue to enjoy limited movement around their house in a wheel chair at least partially under his own steam as she, a former senior care nurse, tended to his daily needs.  In her words, had she left him to just languish in the bed or put him in a nursing home, he probably would have passed away from depression before last year ended.

However, along with the other tragedies of 2020, by late summer he began to slowly lose the ability for independent movement.   My husband, I and our youngest son made plans to drive down for a return visit during my husband's last vacation for 2020, the week before Halloween.  However, a few days before our planned departure, we learned that at that time, here in New York, there was still a very strict 14 day quarantine requirement for people returning from travel out of state.  Neither my husband nor my son could do that as both had work obligations either immediately or within the week of our return so we had to cancel the trip.   Unfortunately, three days after our planned arrival, my MIL's husband passed away.  Like so many others with dying relatives during this pandemic, not only did we miss the opportunity to see him one last time, we were also unable to attend the funeral services. 

The situation was made worse when two days before her husband was to be buried, both my husband and MIL received calls that my husband's youngest brother had also passed away (although not COVID related)!  This was unexpected although not a total surprise.  He had led a troubled life and had been estranged from the family for decades only reaching out periodically.  The last time my MIL had spoken to him had been two years ago.  The responsibility for arranging for cremation of his body fell to his oldest daughter here in NY and my MIL as next of kin.  Needless to say all of that was complicated by the fact that the body was in Maryland so identifying the body and arranging for its cremation had to all be done long distance.   

Fortunately, in addition to a few local friends and church members, my MIL had an out of town couple she was friends with who were able to come stay with her for awhile immediately after the funeral.  Then she stayed with her former sister-in-law in Raleigh from the weekend before through the day after Thanksgiving.  

After my husband and I discussed it and with the more relaxed return quarantine requirements that had by then been issued (requiring pre- and post-return COVID testing and only three days of quarantine before the second test),  I booked round-trip train tickets to go to NC on the last day of November and stayed with her for two weeks which also allowed me to be with her for her birthday.  My MIL is a quilter and I knew that after such a tough year, a mini quilt retreat would boost both of our spirits.

She had been planning to buy a sewing table for me to be able to comfortably sew on for the long visit.  In the past, when I came down, we would be squeezed into her sewing space and I'd set up my machine on her cutting table.  Instead, I purchased a Gidget table and had it delivered to her home.  I knew Fanny, my trusty traveling Featherweight would fit perfectly in the table and I would be able to recess the machine since I had plans to bring a project to work on requiring space for easy Free motion quilting.

In the box were the projects I mailed down for the trip!

This was my little work space set up in my MIL's late husband's "Man Cave".  Her sewing room adjoins this room so we could "socially distance" yet still be in close proximity while sewing together.  Even better, I left it there for her to use with her small travel machine or for me when I visit again.   Although I adjusted the drop for my Featherweight, it can be readjusted for other small machines too.  She has a friend from NY who comes down each summer to sew with her and has a large machine.  She will be able to just pop the recessed area up and lock it in place to use the table as a flat surface with her machine.  

The project I had plans for quilting was the Blue and White Spiderweb quilt that had been the second project picked for my "Blue and White Holiday Decorating" plan.  It was inspired by the one made by Stitched In Color and using the Accuquilt Spiderweb die and more of the scraps from the AQS BOM stash.   I had made the blocks as leader/enders while working on all the other mystery, quarantine, BOM and mini projects before my trip.  I did get it to a top while in NC but didn't get around to layering and quilting it as you can see in the picture below.

While there I also got a few other tops done, like "Serendipity" (a Fons & Porter Easy Quilts Magazine pattern) using some of the leftovers from the "Modern Bohemia" BOM.....

....and "Indigo Weave" which I had kitted up from the blue fabrics leftover when I made Bonnie Hunter's "Double Delight" mystery early last year.

The blocks were still in progress here but the top is now finished.

On the right in the picture below you see a peek of my "Snow Day" project, another in my series of  Edyta Sitar/Laundry Basket Quilts designs.  The Nine Patches in it are made from the scraps of my AQS BOM project.  I got all the blocks and rows I had brought with me put together only to realize, I needed more!  So that was definitely going to need more work on it when I got back home.   While there, I also helped my MIL with some of her projects including finishing up her "Elvira" quilt top and pieced backing (which darn, it I don't have a picture of!) and work on her "Natalie's Quilt" project by Margaret Leuwen (on the left in the picture below).  

However, the first big job we tackled when I got there was to organize her project bits and bobs! After two years of daily caregiving, her scraps, projects (both finished and WIPs) were all over the place!  We put together some storage cubes she had purchased and moved her yardage and finished tops (in the top row of cubes) into them.  On top of the unit, I relocated a big bunch of finished quilts that had been stuffed in the back of a hall closet!   

These were in the "Man Cave" where I was working.

A big job was organizing and more importantly labeling her storage bins of scraps and projects.  The bins were all there but each had either scraps of different colors or project bits from multiple projects.  Now everything is sorted by color or single project so she can clearly see and find what she needs or wants to work on or with.

But the highlight of the trip for both of us was one of the rare outings we made while I was there.  I knew that Keepsake Quilting and Pineapple Fabrics had merged and had opened a new outlet store in Archdale, NC in October of this year.

 A visit to NC is the only time I would ever get there!  This was true for my MIL too since she doesn't like to drive on the highway long distances (Archdale is about 2 and a half hours from her and I drove).  So I made our appointment to shop (with pandemic precautions, the number of people in the store are limited to 50 at a time and visits there can be booked in hourly increments).   We both had a ball!  It is a big store with a good selection of fabrics.  

In addition to fabric on the bolt, they sell fabric precut packs of fat eights and quarters, one yard bundles and packaged wide back bundles of two to three yards.  They also carry a lot of different tools by all the popular companies and patterns by all the poplar designers.  There was also a clearance table.  I think you can see from this picture that we made the most of the day!

   

So the trip was a good one and my MIL was sad to see me go but appreciated that I was able to take time from my family and spend it with her.  Of course as time has gone by she now has to get used to being in her home alone.  Additionally she has been dealing with some nagging health issues so depending on what flares up, has good days and bad.

So Day 4's sewing got aborted because when she texted I called her and we had a real long talk: about her husband, about dealing with one's grief, about what she wants her life to be now as a widow.  That last one is probably the most difficult for her to navigate.  It is the first time in a long while that she has to think about just herself and it is not easy for her.  I told her she was entitled to be sad but not to the point of stopping living.  One of the ongoing discussions while I stayed with her was that she ate because I did but if I hadn't been there she might have not eaten frequently because she was often not hungry!  One thing I had done while I was there was to check to see if she had Skype on her computer which is in her sewing room.  She did, so when I got back I scheduled a Skye sewing session with her which she enjoyed.  

So after our talk, I suggested we do another Skype session the next day.  After ringing off and talking to my husband now I wasn't ready to sew!   So decided I'd save my sewing for the Day 5 Skype session.  Except it didn't happen.  I texted my MIL in the morning to find out what was a good time for her.  She said she had errands to run so would call me when she got back.  Since my husband was unexpectedly off for the day, I spent the day catching up with things with him while waiting for the call.  However, she didn't call until late because she got a late start on the errands and by then was too tired to focus on sewing.  We made tentative plans again for today (Day 6) and I ran errands with my DH in the morning expecting to link up with her in the afternoon.  However the call I got today was that she had not slept well because of pain so had gone in to see her doctor again and was still a little out of sorts for lack of sleep.

It is real tough to lose a spouse and/or a child.  While monitoring her health issues, I plan to also suggest that she might consider a grief counseling group because I think some of the "pains" have to do with dealing (or more likely, not adequately dealing) with the grief.  I went through a similar thing when my mother died and once I sorted out my feelings the physical pains went away.  

However, I also know that grieving takes time so I expect my DH and I will be keeping in close contact with her a lot in the coming year.  When he chose his 2021 vacation weeks back in October, we had set aside two weeks in October again to return to see her.  When I told her that, her response was "But that's a year away!".  So we're trying to see if he can swap a vacation week with a co-worker so we can combine it with one of the weeks earlier in year that has already been chosen.  We could do a one week visit IF the vaccine helps reduce the return quarantine restrictions but so far I've heard not to expect that before mid-year or Fall of next year.     

So hopefully tomorrow, I will get back to my own sewing for both the last of the seven days and the start of a new year.  Let's hope for us all that 2021 will be a darned sight better than 2020 was!  To any who have survived to the end of this very long post, I wish you and your family a safe and Happy New Year!! 

Back In the Saddle....

....and holding onto the reins for dear life!  Actually I am grateful that COVID has meant that family, friends and neighbors (those that were informed about my surgery) were even more available and supportive than might have been possible if a pandemic hadn't upended all of our lives.  Much better and sooner than I expected, I was able to sit up (and so commenced the hand work project pictured above), then walk around, then take short and then longer walks all within the week after the procedure.  

As part of the recovery, I've also made a few visits to our community garden and used those trips so my DH and I could harvest our garlic.

Here's some of the garlic curing.

Unfortunately all of this on top of the quarantine has cut into starting seeds for transplants for summer planting.  I've direct sown some pepper plant seeds and we had a few "volunteer" tomato starts that had popped up so we'll see if we wind up getting anything out of our garden bed as the summer progresses.

At the start of the second post-surgery week, I was able to sit up at our house desk top computer and now in week three I'm preparing for a return to working at the sewing machine.  Woo hoo!!  First tasks will be to stitch down the applique on the "Hope QOV" and for a little mini quilt kit that provided some fabric for yet another larger Quarantine project I started that I hope I'll get to work on and share later.

Another downside in the past few weeks was that my laptop (my day-to-day working computer) decided it had "had enough" and stopped booting up the week before the surgery so recovery time was also spent figuring out what I wanted in a new machine.  Fortunately that's been resolved as I type this on the new one I picked up this week.  I have a commission project for a friend that will push me to finally, really learn to use the EQ8 software I purchased last year in order to begin the design work on it.  So that need should put some fire in my belly to get a move on to get comfortable using this new computer equipment and moving the files over from my old one.

Thank you again to all that sent well wishes!  This all is a reminder for all of us to take each day as it comes and cherish it!  I am eternally grateful for being a quilter when it came time to be "down for the count".  A stack of "Haven't Started Yet" hand work projects, the ability to read Bloglovin' posts on my phone and a (maybe too generous) collection of quilt books and magazines (both the latest issue of American Patchwork and Quilting and the release of  the new Fons & Porter Quick & Easy Quilts digital edition arrived just in time!) meant illness wouldn't keep a dedicated quilter down!

So with that, I now continue the forward momentum of both healing and (Semi-)Quarantine Quilting!  Happy to be back quilting with all of you!

Resuming work during the National Corona-cation and National Craft Month

With all the shut downs happening because of the Corona Virus, everyone is looking forward to new found time in their quilt spaces.  Which is a good prompt for me since I haven't sewn a thing in two weeks!  A series of events prompted my work stoppage, starting with having so many projects in the air and then hitting roadblocks on a few.  Of course the roadblocks were on the two projects I had really hoped to get done before the end of February:

I had started these pillow covers as one of TWO projects I thought would be really quick-to-make Valentine's day projects to coordinate with the other projects I previously made for decorating for that holiday.  But nope, I also ran into trouble with the other project (a runner) before moving on to this one which worked well as a leader/ender while I was finishing work on the Girl Scout quilt top.  I got them almost completely done until I tried to make a faux piped binding.  Although I have made that before,  I once again ran into trouble and was frustrated enough at that point to just put them aside.  Speaking of the the Girl Scout Quilt:

I was nervous yet jazzed up to move on to quilting this after showing the top to the other facilitators I had worked with to help the girls make the blocks. I had designed a layout for the back that fortunately made use of all of the 4-H fabric we had also purchased for this project.  After showing the top, I had gone to pick out a bunch of potential binding and hanging sleeve fabrics by "shopping the stash" of the group that had funded both this project and my EPP workshop and then drafted a label for the quilt.  The only thing I still needed were the names of the girls from the workshop attendance lists to finish the label and add it to the backing layout.  I wanted to keep the design wall and the sewing table clear to work on that as soon as it came in.  However, I wasn't sent the label information until the first week of March.  So February ended with two more projects piled up that I had wanted done by February's end!

This didn't help my sewing mood since I had already abandoned plans to finish two OTHER projects in February because of the above projects:  one was my Tobacco Road quilt:

A completed center still waiting for some borders!

I had already missed my own deadline to get the top finished by the time the "Frolic" mystery ended in mid February so had really hoped I could finish this top by February's end or at least as soon after that as I could.   Then there is also Emeralds:

This is as far as I got last year.

When I had planned my projects for the year, this one was slated to be worked on at the end of February in the hope of having it finished for St. Patrick's Day display in March.  The good news is that the delay has prompted a change of course for the back of the quilt (now the third such change of plans since I started this project last year).  Very much inspired by Carole at the "From My Carolina Home" blog and her always lovely seasonal and holiday tablescapes, I learned that this year Mardi Gras was in the last week of February so just a few weeks before St. Patrick's Day.  Green also figures heavily in the Mardi Gras color scheme and I immediately thought that a simple quilt design in Mardi Gras colors for the back would make this a two-sided, two-holiday quilt.  Love it!  Of course that meant starting a search for potential designs and at least a few Mardi Gras fabrics.  That search is still under way so it looks like Emeralds will sit for another year......

So March started and I was already not sewing and what's the worse (but enjoyable) thing that could happen then?  I discovered a new crafty binge-watch obsession: does anyone else watch The Great British Sewing Bee?

I watched from Season 1....

...through Season 5!

Looks a bit like a quilt retreat,huh?

OMG, I LOVE that show!  Of course it played right into my long simmering desire to return to clothing sewing.  Unfortunately I had discovered it five seasons in and equally unfortunately all the seasons were available on YouTube!  So there I was in the first week of March with errands to run because DH was due to be on vacation the following week and we had projects and an outing planned.  Then an emergency call came in needing someone to meet the delivery of the Porta-Potty for our community garden.

Well needless to say it was not hard to spend the down time between tasks getting through the GBSB episodes.  Not to mention also looking up patterns, fabrics and technique books (on freehand pattern cutting) related to the challenge projects given to the contestants.  Oh, and thinking about that DIY dress form I've also longed to make again.  Another Honey-Do project for DH's vacation?

DH's vacation has followed the GBSB binge (not to mention following the course of all the Corona developments), taking me even further off track. Sigh!  No matter, after spending the first work day in the garden for the new season on Saturday, I'm ready to refocus.

As always, I'm with Bonnie!

I already see things I want to get done in my garden bed and also need to get up to speed on starting the plants that will get put out in late April and May once the weather breaks for good and is consistently warmer.  Fortunately the things I planted in the Fall have managed to survive so I've also already got a good start for the early season too.

So it will be important to get back in gear on my quilt projects because it won't be long before the garden starts taking up a lot of my time.  Oh and I've got to catch up on this month's BOM work too!!

So I certainly have more than enough projects lined up for either a Corona-cation, National Craft Month or the upcoming National Quilting Day which is this coming Saturday!   If anyone needs a project, check out the Quilt Alliance NQD page which has links to free quilt patterns offered by popular quilt industry companies in honor of the day.  The Alliance is also rekindling a project that was founded by the (now defunct) National Quilting Association – Happy Birth Day, Baby!   For it, quilters or quilt groups can make a quilt for the first baby born on National Quilting Day in their local hospital.  The Quilt Alliance has a free downloadable pattern and full details about participating here.

As always, so many quilts, so little time --- especially when you take a loonng break to binge-watch!!

Word of the Year: PLAN

Each year, quilters around the world pick a word that represents their vision for their new year of quilting work.  When I thought about 2019, I decided that the thing I wanted to improve on most this year was my ability to PLAN what I want to get done.  You know the old saying:

When I started quilting, it was both to learn the craft but also to explore the nature of creativity and learn how people were able to move from an idea to making a beautiful finished product.  To that end, over the years I've read (and saved) articles and quotes from creatives in various disciplines and found that the "process" is the same no matter what it is you are producing.  The biggest revelation was that it is not as smooth or direct a journey as it seems to those of us that view the finished works.

Yet, I'd also see quilters who seemed to be producing a project a week and wonder, "How the heck do they do that?!?!"  Well, closer examination showed that I really had to take a close look at the type of things they make compared to my own WIPs.  If they focus on only one style of project or they limit themselves to projects of a specific size or they only work from curated fabric lines rather than choosing a compilation of fabrics or they employed a range of shortcuts or simple to execute techniques, it greatly improved their ability to crank out finished goods at a good pace.  More importantly though, I also realized how important it was that they worked on their projects consistently and had a handle on what they needed to do and when.  That was a big help in allowing them to get what they wanted done when they wanted it done. 

To that last point, three years ago I learned about "Bullet Journaling" (Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts has started a good You Tube series on the topic) and around the same time I discovered the blog of  Jessica Abel.  Ms. Abel is by profession a cartoonist and art professor but also runs workshops to help creatives take better control of their creative work.  I read her book "Growing Gills" and have watched a number of her free webinars co-hosted by other creative coaches.  I learned a lot about how our perceptions of how we work and what we can accomplish is the real source of the frustration in not getting our projects done.  Too often those perceptions are in conflict with what it is actually possible to get done.

Jessica Abel's blog post on "Granularity" sums up the solution quite well.

Can you say "reality check"?   Like most quilters, I would love to get to a point where my hobby could actually generate an income.  However, watching those already in "the industry",  I see how important it is to be able to meet (often very short) deadlines and produce a prolific amount of projects.  While I feel capable of that, it has been a challenge just to complete the projects I'm making for my own purposes and bring them in on the deadlines I set for myself.

The biggest lesson I've learned from Jessica has been how important it is to really understand the steps to completing a project.  You need to to carefully map out how you approach that project to really evaluate what it will take to complete it.  Often that means considering:

Just one of the motivational signs I hang in my quilt space.

I've been less stressed about my projects since I've learned to really see just where my "intention wheels" get run off the road!  Rather than being frustrated when I don't meet a deadline, I can more easily see what it would have taken to complete it as intended.  That helps me stay focused on the task at hand.  It has also helped me to distinguish when something is truly a task and when something --- which in my mind, I think should be simple and quick to execute --- is actually a project in and of itself.  In that instance, I have to change course and accept that it needs more time, planning and effort than initially anticipated to achieve it.

So to that end, I'd really like to up my estimation game this year.  I'd like to get better at evaluating what it will take to finish a project and better at planning my quilting sessions so I can actually meet the deadlines I make.  After all, I have project ideas to fill a few lifetimes but only one lifetime to make them all!  Ok, there's that reality check:  make as many of those project ideas as possible!  Since living forever isn't an option (yet!), it's important to me right now to get better at squeezing as much out of the one I've got while I've still got it!

Do you formulate a word of the year?  What's your word and what do you hope to accomplish in this new year and decade?  I wish you all the possibilities you desire and none of the stress in accomplishing them!

Frolicing Along and Six Ways To Enjoy the Quiltville Mystery Season

Part 2 of the latest "Frolic" mystery dropped yesterday!

I'm not doing Frolic but I am working on some Bonnie Hunter mysteries:  I'm continuing work on "Tobacco Road" (an old Bonnie mystery from 2008) :

"Frolic" did four patches for Part 1 and I finally finished up these Part 1 four patches for "TR" too!  

I'm also planning to work on "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll" while Frolic is happening.  I had finished Part 1 for it back in May and started on the Part 3 string blocks earlier this year (seen here and here) but unfortunately didn't get to make any of those this week.  Part of the reason I jumped ahead to that part of that mystery was to participate in some of the "String Alongs" that were hosted around the web this year.   Maybe I'll get to make some more in the coming week?

The best thing about Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville mystery season is that it's a community but doesn't require the things that often make people shy away from doing a Bonnie mystery:  the need to keep pace with the group or to finish or whether you like the current project.

For those of you who are (or want to) dive into this year's project, you can:

1.  Participate With the Group.

Follow the current prompts and plan your work around the weekly link-ups.

Tip:  Linking up doesn't require that you finished that week's section, only that you check in with whatever you have (or even haven't!) accomplished for the week.  It's guaranteed that whatever your progress is, there will be someone else encouraged by the fact that they are at the same point in the process as you are!

2.  Figure Out How To "Tweak" the Design.

 I'm a scrappy girl so it's rare that I will not like Bonnie's design.  I have however, sometimes not loved the color scheme.  One thing I always enjoy seeing in the weekly linkups (which this year will be on Instagram) is how other people have interpreted her color scheme.

Edited To Add:  If you'd like some help with how to choose alternate colors for a Quiltville mystery,  make it a point to review the video that Bonnie and Holly Anne of String & Story did in 2018 for some tips on how and where to start.  Holly Anne gives you a road map on how to approach your unique color picks.

Although be warned, I didn't like the color scheme of  Bonnie's 2008 "Double Delight" design when it first debuted.  Then in 2018  (many years after I became enamored with the Civil War repro palette) I realized what I had been missing out on and had to run and make it up!  If you don't like it now, you might just covet it later!

There are also people out there who as the mystery progresses, will try to figure out what the final layout of the mystery is.  This can be fun and helpful later on:  it's a challenge to see if you are "thinking like Bonnie" and guess the layout of the pieced components correctly.  But even if you don't, you may stumble on a block combination that you will use to make your own unique layout.  Even better, if you realize that you pieced a section wrong or don't like the way the colors or fabrics you have used work in the final design, one of your changes might help make your "design decision" work for you!


For those who aren't quite ready to jump into this year's mystery:

3.  Follow the Weekly Prompts.

Use the mystery season or the weekly prompts while the current mystery is going on as a "call to action" to finish up a prior year mystery project.   Last year, conscious that I had not one but TWO of the most recent mysteries finished but waiting to be quilted, I didn't take on the challenge of gathering fabrics for the new one.  Instead I embarked on one of Bonnie's older mysteries that I could start by using the scraps from the ones already completed.  So while the world was working on "Good Fortune", I was having a "Double Delight" doing Bonnie's mystery from 2008.  Even then I didn't finish exactly when "Good Fortune" ended (well, it didn't help that I hadn't started at the same time either!)  but I was engaged enough in the project to continue with it and finish the top and backing a month later.  Actually, I did start the prior year's mystery "On Ringo Lake" when Bonnie did (because for that one I loved the color scheme!) and used the weekly prompts to work on it AND finish up the mystery from the year prior to that ("En Provence"), as well!

A few times Cathy over at the Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting blog has done a different variation of this same process:  while Bonnie's mystery is going on she has made the same units called for in the clues for the current mystery but used the units to finish up another project.  So if Bonnie called for flying geese she made them (although not necessarily the same size) and used them for an existing project she had that also called for flying geese.  This way she was "sewing along with the mystery group" and got a UFO moved forward!

4.  Create Your Own Mystery Quilt Finishing Challenge.

Take a page out of the book of my two heroines in Mystery Madness:  Jo Kramer of Jo's Country Junction and Maggie Fellow of Making A Lather.  For many years, Jo used the run up to the new mystery as an opportunity to try to knock out a prior year mystery UFO or make a bunch of quilts from one of Bonnie's books before the new mystery got underway.  Since 2018 Maggie had been on a quest to complete all the mysteries and completed the last of them this year.

I'm sort of following their lead in that after embarking on "Double Delight", this year's rash of String Alongs had prompted me to start "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll".  I added to it using the double pink leftovers from "Double Delight" and the greens from a Fons & Porter St. Patrick's day project called "Emerald's".  I'm using the excitement of the current mystery season to push me to add to the small stack of string squares I already finished for it and move it further along the track towards a finished top.

5. A Great Opportunity To Use Leaders and Enders.

One piecing tactic Bonnie is well known for promoting is the idea of using "leader/enders" -- that is using the piecing of one project as a follow-up to another.  Rather than putting a scrap through your machine that you will ultimately throw away, why not send a piecing unit from another project through just before or after you sew up that line of pieces from your current project.  It serves the same purpose of keeping something under the presser foot at the start of a seam and you get the benefit of finishing up a part of another project even as you focus on your current priority.

I'm doing that too:  I had kitted up "Tobacco Road", one of Bonnie's early mysteries, back in 2018 when I had plans to travel to help out a friend who expected to need help during a serious illness.  Fortunately she was able to make it through without the additional support and now over a year later, I was finally able to get the "travel project" started during another trip this year.  So I'm using it as a leader/ender along with her "Cotton Boll" mystery and hoping to finish up both tops during the "Frolic" fun.

Other things to consider:

6.  It's Stress-free Sewing! 

Don't stress about the number of pieces called for in a typical Bonnie mystery design.  Bonnie has always said that she designs BAQs (Big A** Quilts) because she makes her quilts to be used and that's the size she likes to have on hand.  That doesn't mean you have to make the current or a past project the exact size patterned.  Many people have made smaller versions of the current project or changed the sizes of the piecing units to make a miniature version of the design.  You could also go larger if you choose.

Bonnie is notorious for using a lot of smaller units (1-1/2" or 2" cut) in her designs.  Someone like my MIL, who only likes working with "big pieces" would be put off with that.  I say don't be!  Make it a personal challenge to convert your project into larger piecing sizes to create her design.

Just Have Fun!

So I've said all this to say that the mystery season, like quilting in general, is meant to be fun.  You don't have to hew to a specific design or stress about finishing --- work in your own style and to your own taste and at your own pace to create a finish as you are so inclined.  But certainly at the least, take the opportunity to check in, download the latest "Frolic" part and enjoy all the community that surrounds this annual event!

Welcoming in Another New Year!

Now that's a Quilter's idea of a Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all!  I hope your celebrations throughout the holiday season have brought you joy and peace and family memories that will last for years.  Just as important, I hope it brought you time to do this quilting thing we love so much!

So first off:  what's my Word of the Year?  I'm planning to work with more INTENTION this year.  This prompt comes from an audio meditation received from Tracy Matthews who runs the "Flourish and Thrive Academy" coaching sessions for jewelry entrepreneurs.  The advice is also good for us every day creatives in that getting our projects done means really drilling down on what you want to make a priority for the year.  After that it's about having a clear vision and plan for completing them.  Just wishin' and hopin and prayin' ain't enough to get them done!

So this year, some of the things I want to turn my intentions toward are:

1.  Returning to the Bucket List:  Last year I had a plan to work on the last four of my original Bucket List projects and that still remains.  I only got started on one of them and then got distracted by life issues.  With things a little clearer now, I'm going to make a better effort to move these forward with the ultimate goal being to complete at least two of them by the end of the year.

2.  Continuing to whittle down the UFOs:  There's alot of them but working on things from that previous category and the next one will also clean up more than a few projects that have been hanging around for a long while.   I'm reluctant to commit to a "one a month" goal -- my "baby steps" route will be to commit to getting at least four done for the year which for me would be siginificant progress.

3.  Quilt Alongs:  The String Alongs going on this year are going to help me vanquish a real old UFO and in the process empty out a big project tub that will go a long way in clearing up some space among the project stash.  I'm admitting right now to joining another new quilt along (so a new project) that will give me an opportunity to scratch a long held itch for a line of fabric I've long loved.

4. Quiltville Projects:  Ah, Bonnie Hunter deserves a catagory all her own!  I've got one (a UFO) that will hopefully be quilted before the end of January, two tops waiting for backs, two in the process of piecing (one of which will be worked on for the String Along) and one kitted up as a travel project.  At least two completely finished is the goal for this year.

5. Complete the Civil War Series:  Well, almost complete it!  I want to get sarted on the two remaining "Hussies" (HSY - Haven't Started Yet) projects that had already been planned for my series of reproduction quilts.  When I look at the above list, I'm thinking the least I can do is get them to tops and maybe one could get all the way to being quilted.  To finish the series I'd need to quilt my "Civil War Chronicles" BOM top but until I sort out my machine quilting situation, I don't expect that to happen this year.

6.  Seasonal Decorating Projects:  I have projects for the Spring, Halloween and Christmas (again?!?!?) seasons that I'd like to work on.  Unfortunately, the list of "To Do's" in each catagory are pretty long so I will really have to take a hard look when each season approaches to determine just what is possible to accomplish.  I'll push for getting one to completion for each.

As always, ambitious but a girl's gotta dream!  Just have to keep in mind that "Dreams Don't Work Unless You Do"!  A Happy Quilting Year to all and to all a Good Week!

Speaking of Scrap Quilts....

Ooops!!  This was an old post that I updated and Blogger (messing with me again) changed it to the current date (which it didn't used to do).  Sorry about that!


September is underway....

 

 

I've started catching up on the wool ornaments....

Two down, four to go!

 

....and there's activity on the design wall......

Sorry for the hazy picture.

These are four patches made as "leader/enders" and braid units I have been collecting to make a quilt called "Confetti".  I'm hoping to enter it in the 5th Annual Scrap Quilt Challenge that the online store Fabrics 'N Quilts is hosting.  Entry deadline is October 15.  I wanted to work on this one because it is the most developed of my WIP scrap projects. 

I try to find scrap quilts I want to make before I have the scraps so that when I process my scraps they go right toward specific projects.  First I saw a "Confetti" quilt in American Patchwork & Quilting (June 2002) and thought it would be a cinch to save up the 2" squares needed for the four patches.  Later I became enamoured of braid quilts and found a design for one in a back issue of Quilters Newsletter (March 1991).  I collected bits and bobs for both for awhile and then one day I found a quilt that used both together!

The pattern on the right, also in a QNM back issue (September 1997) is also called "Confetti" and used both the four patches in the center like the APQ quilt and then braid units for the borders.  Don't you just love quilting!  The queen-size quilt called for 256 four patches and 304 braid units. By the time I saw the Quilt Challenge announcement this year I had 206 four patches but had not kept count of how many braid units I had cut.  However, since it's no longer a requirement that I make a queen-size quilt, I figured I should put the patches up on the wall and see what size quilt might be possible with what I already have on hand.

The only problem?  When I had originally started collecting for the QNM braid quilt pattern, it was designed so that the light braids and dark braids would be pieced on opposing sides of the braid columns so were cut in the reverse of each other.  However, even after I decided on doing the later QNM combined quilt, I continued to cut the braid units that way.  I'm only now noticing that if I'm going to use a white background as per the pattern, the braids as I have them cut will not work.  So the debate now is whether to change the border design to accommodate what I have or use a different (darker)background to provide a better contrast to work with what I have.  I'm still chewing on that choice in my mind and the decision will guide or may be made by my choice of background fabric.

Scraps or Scrappy?

I find that people often mean two different things when they use the term "Scrap Quilt".  For me, there is a distinct difference between "a quilt made from scraps" and "a Scrappy Quilt".  In an "Editor's Note" that was sent in an email back in March entitled "Scrap Happy", Quiltmaker Magazine Editor Rachel Peterson said this about the spring cleaning she was giving her studio:

"I simply had to ask myself, "Can I see this in a quilt?" If I hesitated, if I couldn't picture even a hint of a quilt, that scrap was tossed. A saying kept flashing through my mind that I learned while studying to be a journalist, "Slay your darlings." Obviously they were talking about words on a page, but it applied to my scrap stash. As soon as I cleared all the clutter and itty pieces I would never use, my stash seemed to fit together better. Suddenly I was seeing more potential for fabric combinations and quilt designs."

Now for me this is an instance where the plan is to "make a quilt from scraps".  That is, the goal is to take leftover fabrics and coordinate them together to make a quilt the same way you would shop for fabric yardage in a store.  There is nothing wrong with that approach  if you are setting out to make a quilt using a specific palette of colors and want to use up or put some of your leftover fabrics toward it.  This is exactly how I started the Valentines Day quilt I made earlier this year.  I am a firm proponent of the idea that your scraps cost you the same amount as your yardage so you might as well use them up!

However, I was surprised by her comment that any scraps she couldn't "see" going into a quilt needed to be tossed.  Yikes!!  My idea of a true "Scrap Quilt" and the ones I enjoy seeing are the ones made from every kind of fabric without regard to what it looks like or if it matches.  In quilts like these, the more different fabrics you add, the better they look!  My inspiration/mentor/heroine in that is Bonnie Hunter who, ironically, contributes a regular feature to the same magazine!  Her column in QM is called "Addicted To Scraps" and if you look at her quilts (and you can do so over at her website Quiltville.com), you'll see they are full of scrappy goodness and include everything under the sun!  Bonnie always points out and jokes about the "Millenium fabrics" that still show up in her quilts from time to time even all these years after the year 2000.  In fact, people still send her their scraps of that kind of fabric and she has no problem adding them to her latest work.  She detailed her own views on the subject of making scrap quilts in this blog post from 2005. 

In  those kind of scrap quilts,  you may only worry about value (light or dark) and maybe tone (if you want the quilt to be primarily full of bright/pure colors or muted/shaded/toned colors) but sometimes even those considerations are set aside.  Many of the antique quilt gems we love were made from the scrap basket and suggest that the maker wasn't concerned about liking the way things went together but only with having enough bits to make the finished size quilt they needed.

Ms. Peterson's comment about "clear(ing) all the clutter and itty pieces (she) would never use" means she's probably never considered making a "Crumb" quilt (also known as Mile-A-Minute or Made Fabric).  For these type of blocks/quilts, there is almost no such thing as a piece too small to make a block.  If you google "Crumb Quilt" you'll see what I mean.  I've actually also got one of those that was in the process of being quilted when I stopped work on it and might try to also finish it up for the Quilt Challenge too.

Admittedly, your tolerance for what is "pretty" factors in here.  Some people find these types of scrap quilt ugly.  However, with quilts as with people, beauty is in the eye of the beholder or in the case of quilts, the snuggler!!  That's not to say that some of your scraps can't be reserved to stuff pillow forms or dog beds. But if I can put my scraps in a quilt I'm so much happier!!