Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Evidence of a Scatterbrained Quilter

I remember a chat I had with my dear late grandmother, who was not in any way a scatterbrain. We were talking about quilting, a hobby that we shared, and she spoke of having several quilts going in various stages of completeness. She said she liked being able to decide to work on what she happened to be in the mood for - piecing, quilting, binding, for example. She was such an organized and orderly woman, she would be totally unnerved by all the chaos going on presently in my sewing room. I cannot imagine that she ever had as many quilts going at once as I currently do.

For the life of me, I have been completely unable to focus on one project lately. This month, especially, I have been all over the place with the projects I want to work on. Consequently, my design wall looks like a pre-school class has had a field day with fabric and blocks.


Let me try to make some sense of this chaos for you.

The large navy star blocks are for Summer Nights, a quilt that is on my goals list for this year. Read about it here, and see a pic of the pattern. I need 18 stars for the quilt, so I am halfway there. Then I need to make the setting blocks. I am so motivated to work on this! The stars go together so fast, and I love getting to use all the navy fabrics from my stash. I could make them chain-piecing style, but doing each star individually has been fun. I am laying each star out and planning the placement of the various fabrics.

At the top center, you can see a tangent I went on with the same star pattern. I had been cutting out the baby quilt I need for a baby due in less than 2 weeks. I will show you a picture of it soon. Anyway, the cutting was finished, and I hadn't yet put away the remnants. It occurred to me that a star in those gray and yellow fabrics would be interesting. So, right in the middle of all the navy and white, I made a gray and yellow star - tangent complete.

Then in the center of all those stars, you see the scrap-busting effort I shared here. I have continued to cut 2.5" and 2" and 1.5" squares, but have not done any more sewing. I am super-motivated, though, so when I get the blue star quilt done, and the baby quilt done, I will return to this.

The aforementioned gray and yellow baby quilt has yet to be shared, but it is upcoming, for sure. I made that top today, and it's now ready to be loaded into the longarm. Yet another tangent. But a necessary one to have moved to the top of the to-do list because - 2 weeks until delivery!

Don't think that I have forgotten a WIP (work in progress) that I began before Christmas - Diagonal Madness. It is always hovering in the back of my mind - that's a tangent I am anxious to get back to.

Is it any wonder that I feel like a scatterbrain?I wish I would have inherited some of Grandma's organization tendencies! *wahh*

Now, do you notice how I "layer" my design wall?? That, my friends, is further evidence that I lack focus. I make a random block, or I play around with leftover bits, then pin them up and look at them for awhile. I have so many orphan blocks that I need to make use of - but I wait for some inspiration to strike. They can hang there and adorn my space in the meantime. Some things hanging there have been pinned up for at least a couple of years, I'm sure.

I will never run out of quilts to make.

Hope you are getting things accomplished! January is almost gone!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

1 comment:

Feedback on my posts is always welcome!