Quilts, Not Clothes

One of my neighbors read my blog Tuesday morning and stopped by on her way to work to give me a whole bolt of fabric that she picked up at the thrift store. She thought I could use it for quilt backings. It’s a lovely Debbie Mumm print and it will make great backings for at least 2-3 quilts! Thank you, Rebecca!

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I’m struggling with what to write these days. I started blogging as a way to keep my MIL and my mother updated about what was happening with us and the girls. Along the way, the blog took on a life of its own and now I have readers all over the planet. I hadn’t realized until this week, though, how much of my blog post planning is driven by me saying to myself, “Oh, the husband’s mother will want to see pictures of the new hydraulic lift,” or “She’ll want to know what we’re planting in the garden this year.” It has always been easiest for me to write when I have an audience in mind, whether that’s my family or a group of knitters or sewists. Missing one of my main audience members is going to take some getting used to.

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Back when I was designing knitwear, I had to be disciplined and work on the projects I needed for the newsletter and books, even if I didn’t feel like it. Part of my resistance to monetizing my sewing (and I need to revisit that whole idea again) is because I like giving into my sewing whims. I was going to make some knit tops, but here I am working on quilts, because I’ve had a stack of fabric sitting on the cutting table:

This started as a fat quarter bundle of Pepper and Flax by Corey Yoder. I added extra prints from my stash. It’s an odd color combo of gray, yellow, and green, but somehow it works. (Most of the fabric in that pile is stash fabric; I don’t want to cut into all of the Pepper and Flax fat quarters until I’ve made a couple of blocks and confirmed that this idea works.) A quilt idea has been percolating in the back of my mind for a couple of weeks now, ever since I saw the Half and Half Quilt from Missouri Star Quilt Company. That quilt design is comprised of one block, but the block is done as a positive and a negative and the two alternate. If you watch the video, you’ll see that Jenny Doan makes the blocks using half-square triangles. That is fast and effective, but it results in a lot of extra seams, especially through the center of the block. I want to make the block using flying geese units and squares, instead. I’m going to use a combination of the print fabrics and Kona White. I have some Kona White remnants, but white is tricky enough to match that  I want it all to come from the same cut of fabric. I picked up a couple of yards of Kona White at Joanns.

I’m cutting the squares needed to make the flying geese using Eleanor Burns’ method and her specialty ruler. I used this method to make a quilt composed entirely of flying geese units a few years ago and it worked out very well. I find it easier to cut and sew larger pieces of fabric and then cut them down to size, rather than sewing smaller pieces of fabric into bigger units. And this method makes four flying geese units at once, so I feel very efficient using it, even though I have long suspected that the various methods take the same amount of time.

This may end up being this year’s Ritzville quilt. I thought I might take a year off—and I’m getting down to the wire for making something before the summer rush starts—but if it works out, I could donate it to the sale. It might have to be machine quilted, though. And it will be smaller than a king size.

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The special hydraulic fluid for the lift arrived yesterday. I am curious to see this machine in action. It looks fairly unassuming right now (and I am not sure he’s done assembling it yet):

I’ll get a picture with a vehicle on it at some point.