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Come in! Have a cup of coffee, maybe a piece of chocolate... Don't mind the thread snips... They keep the Dust Bunnies occupied.
Join me on my journey through the world of quilting. I'll be showing pics of WIPs (Works In Progress), finished quilts, UFOs (Un-Finished Objects), and maybe even a "How I did that" every now and then. I hope you enjoy your visit.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Another Giftmas Quilt and the Importance of Timing

This was the hardest quilt I made for Giftmas this last year.  The pattern I chose called for pre-cuts.  2 layer cakes (40-10 inch squares) and 2 jelly rolls (40 2.5" WOF strips).  I think there were 10 or 12 different fabrics in the pre-cuts in both lights and darks of yellows, greens, pinks and browns.  This was the most difficult for me for several reasons.  First and foremost, I normally send pics to my Mom as I go along to get feedback and simply because I love to share what I'm doing (which might explain this blog! LOL).  Second, I have issues with random, which I will discuss again in the second segment.
This quilt was for my Mom so I couldn't very well send her progress pics.  I probably would have, but she said no.  She wanted it to be a surprise.  So I had to muddle through the best I could.  Trying to bring order to the chaos that is scrappy quilting made me a little crazy some days.  But in the end I am very happy with how it turned out.  There is a 3rd pair of the star diamonds at the bottom, the quilt was too big to hold up to show all of it.

The Importance of Timing.  I have spent the last 3 days carefully tracing all the pieces of 9 applique' blocks onto freezer paper with anywhere from 10 to 20 pieces per block.  Tonight, sitting beside me were eight or nine 10"x18" sheets of freezer paper that I had cut ahead from the roll.  So plenty of paper available.  Still, I found myself twisting and turning the half sheet I was working with to see if I could squeeze another piece onto it, before moving on to the next sheet from my stack.  The Brat, who has been working from home the last two nights, happened to wander past while taking a short break.  I made a comment to the effect of "I have plenty of paper, why do I put myself through all this trying to squeeze all these together."  Brat's reply was that perhaps I had the tiniest of issues with being obsessive.  She then quickly sorted through the mail, and laid a sheaf of papers on the arm of my chair, and proceeded on out of the room.  I finished up the block I was tracing, and went to see what the papers were.  They were a checklist.  The title had 3 words in it, but the only word my brain registered was Competency.  Given the just previous conversation, and the sorting of mail, I jumped to the conclusion that someone was questioning my competency!  It took about 15 minutes for Brat to reassure me and remind me that they were the papers I had promised to go over for her to spell check and test for readability.  When she writes training manuals, and worksheets and such for work, I often go over them since if they make sense to me, they should be easily understood by anyone actually in the business.  The situation was apparently very funny to her (to gauge by the laughing), although it took a while longer for me to see the humor.

While I was writing this, our TV died.  Or, actually the lamp within the TV died.  We just replaced the lamp last September.  The new lamp should be here friday.  Until then, I guess it will be rather quiet in the living room.

That's it for now
See Y'All later!

1 comment:

  1. HEY! How did I miss this for TWO days???? I love my quilt and your care and determination and the personalization of every quilt you make just shines through :)

    ReplyDelete

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