Cutting Corners

      The leaf quilt has been carelessly set aside-- that last 2-1/2" border can wait. I am now obsessed with the Chatterbox quilt!

     My mom always enjoyed telling the story about how I would sit on the floor as a youngster and cut magazines to shreds. She called it doing "Clippy Cutties," and always finished by saying how I left a mess for the vacuum! Apparently, I had more affinity for scissors than crayons in my formative years. If only I could relive that magic moment when I discovered tape-- all those little pieces could be put back together in a new way!

     So here I am years later, still doing what I was born to do. I mentioned that the Chatterbox quilt is the most repetitive thing I have ever made-- I'm usually drawn to Sampler quilts that keep my interest a bit more. But here I am, working towards 240 of these:

     There are quite a few steps to just getting this far-- cutting fabrics and taping them to Triangles on a Roll, stitching on the dotted lines, then cutting on the solids, removing the papers, ironing open, trimming dog ears, stitching on blue and white corners, pressing the corners back, trimming them, and then pressing the seams open. Phew! This is repeated for twelve different fabrics. It's quite a few hours, so to streamline the process. I promised myself I would strictly assembly line them-- all twelve fabrics-- one step at a time. Of course, I couldn't stick with that plan at all! I now have pieces at every stage of the aforementioned construction steps. Fortunately and because I took over the kitchen table, I have kept them organized. 

     My fall back position was then to just get all the units together before I started final assembly. Then this happened-- Whoops!

    You can't blame me for just wanting to make sure I was liking this thing for all the work that's going into it, and good news, it's a hit out of the park in my view. The colorway is semi-patriotic-- red, white, blue, and gold-- perfect for summer. And it's going to come out at a very generous size-- 48" x 48"-- perfect to drape on my couch.

    I am going against my best moral judgement in pressing the seams open-- the block size is 6" finished and I don't think I have a choice. I'm not going to be doing any pinning of points to keep things moving, except that center one-- and here's how things are looking:

     Super sharp, but not exactly aligned-- if those seams were nested, my points would be snug as bugs. So we'll see what happens. Unfortunately, this quilt is the next one getting carelessly set aside this week-- I found out one of my best internet friends had also purchased the Tilda Christmas quilt. This is the one I succumbed to, in a weak moment, after Christmas. Then, I badgered her into doing a stitch-a-long with me. April is Reindeer Month-- surprise, surprise, her six deer are done, and my package isn't even open yet. So I'm switching gears today and trying to make that a sewing priority this week. I will have no respect for myself if I disappoint my friend.

    Other things I had planned to finish in April-- February and March Kona Star blocks. Leaf Quilt. Moonbeams Release 2. Piece three backings for stuff I finished early this year. Ha! For awhile, I thought one day of straight sewing would catch me up. Now, it's realistically a week of sewing that would be needed. Let's wait until it will take a full month of sewing to catch up all the things! It would be my dream to take a month off this summer and work on all of them-- work on all of them in my finished sewing studio, which is slowly becoming a reality-- we have a start date, May 1st. More on that as it develops.

     Two people I enjoy following on the web-- Pat Sloan and Sister's Choice Quilts have both commented lately how overwhelmed they are with projects and the need to scale back. One woman in the comments said her house looked like a padded cell with all the hanging quilts! People always suggest donating.  I haven't done too much deep thinking about this-- but the overwhelmed feeling can't be denied. I have kept up with giving away most of what I make-- most of it is going for birthday and Christmas gifts-- so I really don't have a ton of finishes hanging around. Most of what I do finish is usually mug rug to table runner size-- there's not a whole closet of quilts anywhere to be found in my house. Would I just make quilts to donate?-- this is where Pat Sloan's thinking is at this point. You would not have believed her hallway with shelves and shelves of quilts-- many still needed binding. I have to admit, donating would take some of the joy out for me-- I love making things for my family and thinking about what they would like. I bring this up, because once the new space is ready-- all the old UFOs will be unboxed and added to the new UFOs-- it may be a sobering moment and I'm trying to prepare myself. For now, I am scrupulously avoiding purchasing new projects, but I still haven't cut down starting new things I have already bought. I would obviously like my brand new space to be completely organized with only the things I love. So there are my musings on that topic. Let's see what happens.

     Seed packets came out last week-- thank you for loving them! I want to do more this summer and the possibilities are endless. Flowers, herbs, wildflowers, not to mention Set Twos of all of the above! It is fun to design two blockbuster things together-- for instance-- a sewing set themed for Christmas is an assured hit. So I'm thinking of "Santa Seeds"-- not just the typical poinsettias and holly, but a bit more whimsical like Reindeer Corn, and Snowflake Seeds. This is how the mind wanders, when you a working on repetitive sewing projects! I keep a notepad by my sewing machine.

     I got quite a few hours in, working the real vegetable garden last week. You would not believe how everything has come alive suddenly. I turned over four rows and planted some early peas, onions, and spinach. Of course it's not going to rain all week, so time will need to be spent watering. And the garden still needs about 2,000 hours of work. But it's glass 1/2 full here right now-- or 1/1000 full, as the case may be. xox.

    

 Look what followed the DD home last week! And wouldn't this picture make a great pictorial quilt? 

   We have eggs coming out of our ears these days, but my 14-egg Crust-less Quiche is a real winner. My older hens are getting really nasty with each other-- it's making me sad. My rooster is bent on destroying me. I gave them a new sandbox to play in and a jungle gym is coming, but it's fight, fight, fight. I have considered letting them out to "free range"-- but you know what is going to happen if I do. A lot of situations in my life really need some thought and some action right now.

     Finally, I've been telling you all to watch what AI brings in front of your eyes on social media-- it's extremely revealing. The latest group that Facebook thinks I need to join is, the "Dull Women's Club." I'm not taking any offense-- Facebook is mad at me, because I haven't posted anything on my personal page for quite a while. Why would I, when I can blather at much longer length over here?

   So-- I've seen it a few times, and I haven't joined. Mostly, the Dull Women don't leave the house much, live in remote locations, and garbage day is the most exciting thing that happens all week. That ticks two out of three boxes for me-- my wonderful SIL does the garbage. There's an obsession with sharing shoe sizes-- I'm not interested in that.  All I can say is the Dull Women should tighten up security on that group because I've been able to see ALL of the posts, without joining. It occurred to me, if they don't tighten up,  the group is in danger of just getting taken over by quilters. Sure enough, not 48 hours after first seeing the group, someone in a remote corner of Europe shared their 180 nine patch units they had made.

My heart is with her. And all of you. Have a dull week-- just do it!

xoxo

Carol