I'm Going to Make Orphans!

I have been eying a lot of quilts the last couple of years, and in some ways, was happy that I was not able to get a hold of the pattern because the library doesn't carry it.  The thing I noticed is that most of these are sampler type quilts that don't really look like sampler quilts.

My Small World - pattern in Quiltmania Spring 2015

Nature's Journey by Anni Downs

The Gypsy Wife pattern booklet by Jan Kingwell

I've decided that I am going to make a sampler type quilt. I'm really not sure what type of layout I will use, but I figure it will give me permission to make little orphan blocks with the hope of someday putting them together in a quilt like one of these. It will give me a chance to use up those free patterns I have collected over the years without having to make the whole quilt. Just some blocks collected here and there.

This idea fits in well with the quilt I have been making A Life of Plenty - making individual blocks and fitting them together in a quilt. And no, this isn't because I am tired of the repetition of the Irish chain quilt.

Quilting Day

I'm not finished with all of the things that had been pushed back, but I am thoroughly enjoying having the time to finally get to them.  There is a joy in having time to do the things you have to do, even if you didn't really enjoy doing them before. Even things like cleaning and yard work.

But now, I have finally given myself permission to get back to quilting.  I have been looking at blog posts and Pinterest and seeing so much inspiration for new projects, but I am holding myself to finishing my current projects.  They still hold my interest, as tempting as it is to start something new.

In case you don't remember from my very sporadic posts, I started three quilts this year.  Two of them were Quiltalongs. One is called Elephant Parade, which is a modern quilt with cute elephants, frogs, flowers, and turtle.  I have changed it up by using animal prints and by adding additional animals.  The other is called A Life of Plenty and it is more folk artsy with piecing, applique and embroidery.  Both of these use a lot of different fabrics, and my sewing area still has a jumble of fabrics I brought down so I could choose the perfect fabric for each.

I am not sure whether I mentioned the third quilt I was making.  I realized as I was making the quiltalong quilts, that I needed a Leaders and Enders quilt.  I tried as best as I could to just use the same quilt as a Leaders and Enders or alternate with the other quilt, but in the end, I realized I needed something mindless that I could simply run through the machine so I could get the piece I was working on out of the machine without having those long threads.

It was around Saint Patrick's Day at the time, and an Irish Chain quilt was something that has been on my to-do list practically since I began quilting.  I found some fabric on sale - it just have been right after the holiday - that would be perfect for it, so I went ahead and started using it up.  It is slow going, of course, since I only use it when I don't have something on my current projects to run through the machine, but now I am thinking that if I could get it done, I could then work on the triangle quilt for my bed.  The triangle (or thimble, depending on what I decide), will then be the Leaders and Enders I will use to keep the two main quilts moving along.

Even with these picture closeups, I think it is pretty obvious that my sewing room needs a serious cleaning.  I've got competing interests this week - "Finish something and use up what you have!" and "Clean and organize so you have space to work!"  I plan to do both this week.

While I was catching up on my blog reading, I read several posts about cleaning clutter and not buying things as a substitute of actually making things.  I recommend the following:

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2015/07/stash-attack.html for quilt fabric
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2015/07/stop-hoarding-start-creating.html for craft supplies
http://www.leedrew.com/2015/07/genealogy-how-many-certificates-do-you.html for genealogy documents

Vacation

Bison at Darby Creek, Columbus, Ohio

My crazy days of working 55+ hours a week are over now. I've neglected my blog during this time period, but many other things also were neglected. Things like quilting, for sure, but also house cleaning and errands were made to wait until the crazy time was over. That is one of the challenges of working on projects. When you know the end date, you wind up throwing as much to after that date as possible. "I'm not even going to think about it until after this project is over."

Even dealing with the empty nest syndrome was pushed back to after work was over. I did get a chance to see this lovely scene at a park with my family, but my daughter wasn't there to see it. They said that the bison rarely come so close to the fence but that day they did and they posed for us for many beautiful pictures.

Fountain at Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada

My sister wanted to go to Canada to see an Islamic museum, and I told her to wait until after work was over. She did. Work was supposed to be over on a Tuesday, and she planned the trip for Wednesday! There were some events she wanted to attend that required us to go right away.  I packed on Wednesday morning, and at 9 a.m, we headed off for a long car trip. All those geometric designs in the museum are very inspiring. After we came back, I rested. Now I have been slowly incorporating all those things that were pushed back. Laundry! Cooking! Cleaning! Errands! Gardening!

Quilting is next. As always happens when quilting is pushed back, when that Pandora's box opens, everything comes spilling out. I want to make that triangle quilt I mentioned last time. I want to make a hexagon quilt. Have you seen the Millefiore quilt? And that brings to mind other EPP quilts. And then what about all the quilt ideas I got from the museum? I still need to work on cleaning up the sewing space and finishing up some WIPs before I let any ideas about starting any new projects get too big.

My Email has been Kidnapped!

The messages you leave me on my blog get forwarded to me on my Hotmail  account.  It is now called Outlook.  I logged in to see my messages yesterday, and while it showed me my inbox for a couple of seconds, it immediately popped up with this message about Skype.  I can now connect Skype to my inbox.  I don't want to do that. I just want a simple email account. I haven't used Skype in a long time.  Skype doesn't need to know the email addresses of all my friends, and when I want to use the service, I will add my contacts there.

I know you can't see it in the picture but it says "By continuing, you agree to Skype's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy." The only option presented on the screen is "Continue". The other button says, "Already using Skype? Sign in". The only options are to "Continue" or to close out the window. This means that unless I agree to Skype's terms of use, I can no longer use my hotmail account. Does anyone know how to disable this? There is no "no thanks" button. My emails will be forever lost to me unless I agree to give up my privacy to this service which I don't use. The easy way out is to click the Continue button and carry on, but this irritates me, and I am going to wait. I will link a different account to my blog posts. I appreciate all of the messages you have written on my blog posts in the last couple of days, and I can see them on my blog, but I cannot respond to you personally.

A Quilt for My Bed

The downsizing of the stuff in my house continues, and one of the things that have recently been downsized is my bed.  I have replaced my queen sized bed with a full size one.  I never did like the headboard, and through a complicated series of decisions, I decided that a full size bed would work better for me.

Once I realized how much smaller this bed is, and how the queen size was not too big for my room, I thought I would regret my decision to downsize the bed.  But since we haven't had a full size bed in the house since I was younger, I need to buy new sheets and new bedding.

I have looked online for different comforter sets and quilts, but none of them really seemed to call to me.  I want something wild - lime green, bright orange, turquoise, sunshine yellow and royal purple  - with crazy patterns swirling together, yet cohesive and pretty.   The it finally hit me - maybe I should commission myself to make a quilt for my bed. I would work for free!  It is sad how long it took me to have that realization and decision.

I have been gravitating towards diamonds lately. I looked at many different diamond patterns until I realized that I could get a quilt off my bucket list.  A simple equilateral triangle one.  The repetition of a simple shape would tame all the wild colors and patterns, and give an interesting sparkling look. It would let the fabrics shine without a great deal of effort on my part.  While it might be interesting to make a big quilt with lots and lots of teeny tiny pieces, I have decided I am going to scale up and make a more manageable size triangle.  I haven't decided on the size yet, but right now I am leaning towards five inches wide or maybe even bigger.

I am really getting excited about the fabric selection process - I have been collecting lime and turquoise fabrics for a while now - ever since I painted my bedroom lime green in 2009. I think it was the sheer size of a queen size quilt in my little domestic machine that prevented me for actually making a quilt for that bed.  But now I have a small and simple bed, and will start making a quilt for it.

Once I finish my Elephant Parade and Life of Plenty quilts, that is.

A Giraffe Arrives!

When last we left our elephants, they were waiting for the elephant parade to begin.  It's been a long wait, and although they are well fed, well rested, and keeping entertained by each other's company, they are getting impatient.  Where are the rest of the animals that will be in the parade?

They were expecting an adult giraffe to join them, and were going to give him a stern lecture about keeping other people waiting, but what they saw instead stumbling across the savanna was a little wonky baby giraffe. Nobody knows what happened to her parents, but all the animals vowed to take care of the giraffe and let her join their family.

Hopefully the giraffe will keep them busy and entertained as they wait for the rest of the animals to arrive.

The Power of Generosity

It started out pretty simply:  I had a large entertainment stand in my family room.  It took up a lot of space, because it had to be placed diagonally to avoid covering up the windows.  It worked well for many, many years.

Then, my daughter recommended that I replace the entertainment stand with a smaller TV stand, and I thought it was a really good idea. I didn't know what to do with the old stand, so I decided to give it away.  I have a lot of downsizing to do, and I have decided that trying to figure out the right places to sell things will make it harder for me to downsize.  The local charity does not want furniture that large.  So I went back to trusty Freecycle to see if anyone wanted it.

Freecycle, if you don't know, is a newsgroup where people in your local area post things they want or are offering for free.  It is a great way to avoid putting so much in our landfills.  In the past, I have given away empty jars to someone who sold soy candles, magazines to a church group for crafts projects, etc.

I posted my ad, and while I was there, I decided to look at the other postings.  I saw a posting for free quilt magazines, and jumped on that offer.  The lady gave me three huge boxes of quilt magazines spanning many years.  I have gone through a very small amount, and am waiting for the opportunity to go through even more.

To pay it forward, I looked for the wanted ads.  I saw a post where someone wanted some perennial plants, namely peonies.  Well, I am trying to reduce my gardening space, so I happened to have them available.  It turns out that the lady who was getting the peonies was also a quilter, and gave me this big box of fat quarters.

The moral of the story is this: The more I try to give away, the more things that I want come back to me.