I'm Still Here

I'm still here, but I sure haven't had much time for quilting lately. It's been two weeks since I last posted and that almost makes me feel worse than not quilting.

If I weren't so slow moving and cranky when I don't get enough sleep, I think I'd start staying up half the night to fit all the things into a day's time that have been falling by the wayside recently.

Our early spring has allowed us to get outside to start on yard, garden, and wood work much earlier than usual. This in itself is a good thing, but at the same time I feel my winter inside has been cut short.

In the past couple of weeks, I've been sneaking in minutes of quilting time here and there to work on a set of six summer placemats.

I had originally ordered these seventeen coordinating fat quarters thinking I would make a quilted summer tablecloth with them. Lacking the time to come up with a pattern for the tablecloth, but hearing the lovely fabrics call out to me every time I passed the doorway to my quilt studio, I decided to go with the placemats which would be relatively easy and something I could work on piecemeal when I had a few spare moments.

To date I have all six constructed and quilted,

. . . the binding sewn on two,

. . . the binding cut, pieced and ready to be sewn on two more,

. . . and two that still need the binding cut, pieced and sewn on.

Then, of course, I'll have the hand sewing of the binding on the reverse sides to do.

With luck they will be done by true summer time, and I'm sure I'll enjoy using them. At least I hope they'll be done by then. Maybe I will start trying to get by on four hours sleep a night. Nah, I KNOW that won't work!

I Should be Ashamed

I should be ashamed to show you this, and I probably would if I hadn't improved . . . a lot.

This is a potholder I made a few years ago when I was trying to learn how to quilt with a meandering/stipple stitch.

Oh. My. Gosh. Have you ever seen a sorrier result, even as a first attempt?

And, of course, the flip side isn't any better!

The big question is: Why haven't I destroyed this? Burned it. Buried it in the garden. Let the dog tear it to pieces.

Well, I guess it is an excellent example of a bad job. :o)

In Honor of Spring . . .

Let's go fly a kite! Do you remember flying kites when you were little? Or with your kids?

I had a wonderful Uncle Winnie and I remember him taking me and my cousin Jeff to the city park in the town where I grew up to fly kites.

Our town had a very popular semi-pro baseball team and the stadium for their games was in the park. Uncle Win took us out into the middle of the ball field and got us set up for kite flying.

I remember two things about the adventure. Number one, trying and trying and trying to get the kite up in the air. (Actually, I think Jeff and I might have been just a wee bit too small to successfully manage the feat ourselves.) And, number two, after finally getting it up (no doubt mostly Uncle Win's doing), standing holding on to my kite string and thinking the kite waaaay up at the end of it must have been at least a mile away. If I let my imagination take me back, I can almost feel the tug of the kite string in my hands.

But back to today and the quilted wall hanging I want to share.

I'm pretty sure this was the second quilt I made for hanging in my husband's third grade class room when he was teaching. I got the pattern out of a Fons and Porter quilting magazine.

Late March and April was usually the time it went up in the classroom.

I liked to think that it would be fun for the kids to stare at and daydream of being outside in the warming, fresh air instead of inside a stuffy classroom. (Apologies to my dear husband, Mr. Teacher, who would rather the kiddies had paid close attention to his teaching!)

I Have A Problem

Spring hasn't even fully arrived here in the Northwoods and already I'm wishing for frigid, snowy days of winter when there's absolutely no work for me to do out-of-doors. Why? SO I CAN QUILT!!

The following pictures taken in my quilt room this morning could have been taken a month ago. Seriously. Nothing would look any different than it does today.

This pile of mumble-jumble just keeps growing (it's fallen over a couple of times already) as I stack more things on top. It's waiting for the Magic Organizational Fairy to come and clean and rearrange the storage areas so it all fits in. Somewhere.

These are a pair of my husband's pants that have a split seam. He goes through stages where every piece of clothing he owns seems like it needs mending and one item or another lives with my quilting projects for a period while patiently waiting to be made whole again.

I'll bet this baby quilt has been in this same position on the sewing machine partially quilted for at least four weeks.

Literally the only thing I have done in this room in what seems like FOREVER is to spend 10 or 15 stolen minutes here and there trying to finish the last blocks to complete this quilt that I think must by now be permanently adhered to my design wall . . . because it's been there so long.

Sign. Well, there are only so many hours in each day and if I'm doing one thing, I can't be doing another. (How's that for profundity?) I need to shape up and learn to enjoy and appreciate what I am doing and completely block out the plethora of other things I'm thinking about.

Anybody got an old set of horse blinders I can borrow?