It feels like a Monday

Well, it IS Monday and so far my morning is indicative of it. I've spent the last hour or so trying to get this post looking like I want it and now it will just be what it is.....rather oddly laid out, but here.

As I don't really have anything new to photograph, I pulled out some pictures of a whole cloth I did a few years back. I couldn't afford to buy a pre-printed one, so drafted my own. I had great fun doing it and was very pleased with the results. The feathered border pictured below is appliqued on using the same fabric as the background for a textured look.
But back to Monday! Here, Mondays are putzing days for me. After what is usually a busy weekend, kids coming and going (my own and their friends), I try not to plan anything for Monday and instead spend the day quilting and catching up on chores.

It was a particularly tiring weekend here so I think even my quilting will be getting the treatment my chores usually do, done in fits and starts, a little at a time. On my agenda for the day is a good clean of my kitchen, a few loads of laundry and vacuuming, along with the inevitable cooking and dishes.

As for quilting, I can't seem to decide on one thing to do today, so I'll spend some time at my frame, cut some more strips for that new project, and work on the quilt in the hoop as I watch a new show starting tonight. I feel the urge to pull out a couple of old piecing projects, too, projects long forgotten and found during my sewing room reorganization a couple of weeks ago.

So today my Monday is just that...Monday. For us, it's also rather like the first day of summer. This is the first week of our 'summer schedule' and now that I've realized that, I feel a little energized. I know the weeks ahead will be filled with lazy days full of sunshine and happy children, the occasional rain storm and, of course, quilting.

UFO Land

This is the latest of my completed UFO's, I finished it last night. (The head and legs holding it up are Lucas, who will be 7 next month.) I won these blocks at a guild meeting (we did a monthy raffle block drawing) and the quilt was nearly done. Why did it get put aside? I don't remember anymore.

I did a UFO program at our guild once (actually twice, several years apart) and I had each person bring an old UFO and tell it's story and I gave them ideas on how to get them finished and out of their sewing room...everything from budgeting some time just for UFO's to giving them away. We had a BALL. As the UFO's got older, the stories got funnier and we all left that day thinking about those old projects.

One woman had her very first quilt...still undone...from 30 years before. She'd finished many, many since then, but her first remained unfinished. The following month, she came to the guild meeting pleased as punch with her finished first quilt (and a few other finished UFO's as well.)

To this day, many years later, almost every time I run into a member or former member of the guild, I hear about that program and how many quilts they've finished since being a part of it.

So while I have visions of new projects dancing in my head, my hands are firmly planted in UFO Land.

Bits and (master)pieces

I recently went through all my fabric and reorganized it. In the process I ended up with a couple of baskets and storage boxes that are 'scrap'... to cut up into different shapes and save for a rainy day of sewing or for when I feel the urge to start something new.

Of course, now that I've been looking at blogs, the urge to start something new is coming daily! I've done some scrap quilting, but it feels more stressful to me than a 'planned' out quilt as I agonize over whether fabrics clash too much or are placed just right. I've not yet been UNhappy with the results, but I'm always afraid that I'll get one together and to me it will look like a mish-mash of fabrics and I'll feel my time and precious fabric were wasted.

I got inspired, though, by Bren and her masterpiece and by a few other blogs that I've seen as I've been roaming around blogland these last few days.

One thing I've found that makes it easier for me to piece is triangle paper. I bought a program to print my own and found that if I print larger squares and draw some lines, I can use it like paper piecing.

So I printed off 7 inch finished squares, roughly trimmed the edges of paper off and marked on my lines for sewing. This enables me to cut fabric into strips, put them all into a basket or storage box and just pull...letting them fall randomly in the block, taking some of the angst out of choosing each piece. I have to admit, I will throw one back and pull again if I pull the same color or two fabrics just really don't bump up together well. The planner in me sometimes gets the best of me!



So there sit my supplies for the next project, my basket of fabrics to start with, my papers to cut and mark. They entice me away from the laundry, dishes and other mundane work of the day.

I try to handquilt each day. My goal today is to finish the border of another UFO and put on the binding. Yet I feel my eyes wandering toward the new project and I'm beginning to feel the excitement of cutting into those scraps, the weight of the rotary cutter in my hand. In my mind's eye I see my box filling with colorful strips, blocks taking shape and the fun of placing and turning and placing again for the combination that makes my eyes dance across the top.

And I'm thinking of Bren and her masterpiece...and the masterpiece that I've been thinking about for years. I had nearly abandoned it, as I couldn't figure out how to make parts of it work. The truth is, with all the quilting I've done, my personal masterpiece is yet unmade.

I think it's time to rectify that.

Sunbonnet Sue

Here she is in all her glory. I think this is my oldest UFO, the blocks having been made as a part of an internet swap.

I set them with an alternating block, they are all feathered hearts like the one shown.

The Sue's were all made with the same pattern. They could be any color but each had to have at least one embellishment on it.

There are beads, bows, buttons and fabric extras among the different blocks.





I don't know quite what to say at this point, I feel a bit speechless and that is SO unlike me. I can't find anything to say that doesn't sound trivial somehow. I feel like after hours and hours of work, sore fingers and multiple spools of quilting thread that there should be something profound to say.



But there just isn't. At least not yet, so I'll say this. She's done. She makes me smile.

Another day

After spending a good portion of my day yesterday on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt, about 40% of the piping is filled. My hands hurt. But I plug on, hardly able to wait to get back at it again today. I'm optimistically (and probably foolishly) hoping to finish it today, so I can see it in all it's glory after so many years of (off and on) work.

I'm not sure how visible it is in the picture, but in the block showing the sides are filled, top and bottom are not.

I almost hate to finish this one, it's been with me for so long, but am nearly giddy with the thought of it hanging on my sewing room wall where it will assuredly distract me from my work on occasion.

Now, off to fill a few more pieces before grocery shopping. The younger kiddos are still asleep and it's quiet here, I think I'll slip out to the backyard and enjoy the beautiful summer morning.

Cherries Jubilee

I feel this incredible urge to get everything posted here, as if somehow I'm way behind by not having starting blogging much sooner.

This quilt was made with fabric given to me by a guild secret sister. I loved the cherry fabric so much I'd been saving it for just the right project. As part of a challenge last year this pattern was chosen and I knew right away that it cried out for that cherry fabric. I was trying to make as many of our challenge quilt tops from fabric on hand as possible.

Bestill my heart

I made this top in anticipation of our youngest daughter's open heart surgery. Called "Ruthie's Beautiful Hearts", I appliqued, pieced and basted the top so I'd have it to work on during her surgery and during our hospital stay. As it turns out, she did famously and we were in the hospital only 2 1/2 short days. It fits perfectly on her toddler size bed and I love it so much I want to do a bigger version of it!