Coffee Break

I finally finished the coffee quilt. It was actually finished a while ago. But I just got around to binding it.

This quilt was a UFO. It was going to be much bigger than this. But I put it aside and started working on other projects. Every now and then I would piece a few blocks. All the piecing is done by hand so it was easy to pick up the sewing from time to time. I thought it would take me one hundred years to finish this quilt.

But earlier this year I decided to just finish my UFO's or get rid of them. It's hard to explain, but I feel like my work is in a different place now than it was a few years ago. I don't want to spend my time now on a project I came up with when my head was in a different place. Especially since my time is more limited. So I decided to just stop piecing and put together a top with what I had. It is all hand pieced and machine quilted. After the top was together, I thought it was kind of boring. Again - I don't think about my work the way I used to. So I stamped coffee stains all over the piece with fabric paint. The piece is called, "Wake Up and Smell the Non-fat Carmel Macchiato."

I have one more UFO to take care of. It's being difficult. But it's going down.

Progress Through Guilt

I'm making progress. Slowly but surely. Here's what I've been up to.

I figured out what was missing from that improv quilt. I reconstructed the circles and lines I deconstructed in the other blocks and voila - a new block. Now I just have to figure out the quilting. It's always something.

I've also made progress on the coffee quilt. Actually, it is pretty much done. But I don't have the right fabric to bind it. Like I said, it's always something.

I was approaching the other UFO, the blue quilt, in the same way I approached the coffee quilt. That is, stop piecing and see what I could make with what I had. But I didn't seem to have enough blocks to make something out of what I had. So I pieced some more. It's still not working. Did I mention, it's always something?

I've also picked up my crochet hook. I have all this yarn in my sewing room and it has been sending me on a guilt trip. Every time I go in there, "So you're making stuff out of your fabric stash again. I guess we're not good enough to be stuff." And, "We were here before some of that fabric. Sorry, we're not as much fun." That kind of thing. Yarn can be so whiny sometimes. So I'm also busy converting the yarn into scarves and hats and other such things so it will get off my case. It's looking at me right now. I'd better go.

These Are The Good Times

All Skate officially moves from the UFO pile into the done pile. Woo hoo! It is machine pieced and the curved piecing is done by hand. 98% of the quilting is done by hand. The circles were quilted free hand for the most part. Marking the quilt was a pain, so I didn't bother. Actually, if I drew the circles free hand, this what they would look like.

The quilt is from a magazine pattern. I added the border because I couldn't bear to have the bias edges in the circles on the outside of the quilt. For some reason, it reminds me of when I was a kid and would go to the roller disco. I had my own skates you know. I got them for my 7th birthday. If you look under the table you can see them (that's me in the yellow shirt which I also got for my birthday). We had a raging slumber party the night before that brought down the canopy bed. We went to the Rink (or the Loop) roller disco the next day for a party. My mother's mentor, Abena Joan Brown, rented a limo for us so we wouldn't think people just rode in limos during funerals. I still hear certain songs and think, "that's a fast skate" or "that's an all skate." And somehow, the music and all of those memories are caught up in this quilt.

Now, I've got two UFO's on the list. I'm half way through piecing the top of one of them. How exciting.

If I knew Then What I know Now

I don't know. There must be something in the water or the planets have aligned or I'm delirious from the kazillion infections I've had over the last few weeks. But I've decided to finish my UFO's once and for all. This is a reversal from my previous stand that it is perfectly acceptable to have projects that take 100 years. But what would an election year be without a little flip-flopping?

It started with the "All Skate" quilt which I am currently hand quilting. I have also decided that the piecing on the coffee quilt has come to an end. I put the blocks I have so far on the design wall. There were supposed to be a lot more blocks in this quilt - it was going to be much bigger. (I know it doesn't look like a lot of blocks, but it's all hand pieced). I don't know what I was thinking back then. I don't have the same interest in making big quilts anymore. That's one of the interesting things about working on these UFO's. It's like the me now is different from the me then. Today, I would make different choices than the ones I made when I started them. I like to think this means I've grown creatively and am able to critique and edit my own work. I actually think my original idea for the coffee quilt was quite uninteresting.

Seriously, this was it. But I've had a flash of insight about this quilt that I'm excited about. I'll share that after I actually figure out how to do what's in my head.

Once I get the coffee quilt off the design wall, the blue quilt is next. That was also supposed to be a big one. We'll see.

Now here is what I think is happening. I've been on a spending diet for Lent. I've been trying to learn the difference between my wants and my needs. So that means I've only been spending money on things I need to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. There have been no trips to JoAnns or the quilt store or the art supply store. I've weaned myself off Borders/Barnes & Nobles. Don't even get me started on Starbucks. So there hasn't been a constant influx of new materials to play with and new ideas. But I need something to DO. And that leaves the UFO's. And I'm in no way disappointed that I've basically been forced to work on my old projects. I like the fabrics, I like the ideas I had when I started them. The only reason I haven't worked on them is because I got distracted by new projects. So I've learned to make do with what I have. I've learned to focus. I've learned to commit. I think I may have learned a little discipline. Lent is awesome.

Also - does anyone know how long it takes to get over this cold? The pink eye is gone but I can't shake the other bug and it is awful. It's like the colds I used to get when I was a kid, and I thought all of my stuff was going to have be burned like the kid in the "Velveteen Rabbit" because I was so sick. That's how bad I feel. Velveteen Rabbit bad.

When It Rains...

Did you ever have a really crappy week? Sure you have. And when it rains, it pours. I'll spare you all of the grisly details and just say this; it is not a good idea to catch pink eye from your toddler when you already have a cold from said youngster. On top of spreading infections, he's not sleeping. Thank you very much Daylight Savings Time. I'm pretty sure he thinks we're messing with his head, and since he's my kid, he's not going quietly. Since I've been gross and infectious, I haven't been going to the chiropractor about my neck. Did I mention that my neck is still bothering me from the accident? There are also issues with the accident and issues with money, yadda, yadda, yadda. And so it goes.

Maybe he'll treat me for free when he grows up.

Fortunately, during the brief moments when my eyes stop watering, I've been able to slip into a happy place with a little hand quilting. I started quilting this piece a few years ago. It is really big but I had finished most of the quilting when I stopped working on it. When I got pregnant, I would fall asleep under it while trying to quilt it. I pretty much slept through my first trimester. So I put it down and it became a UFO. Now seems like a good time to pick it up and try to finish it. When it rains, it pours, so you might as well quilt.

Don't Rain On My Parade

I finished the quilting on my "El Segundo" quilt today. I remarked to my husband that if I managed to get the binding on before the end of the year, I will have completed all of the projects I started this year. He then proceeded to say, "What about that quilt on the chair in the bedroom?"

Are you kidding me? First of all, I started that quilt two years ago. So it doesn't count towards my list of accomplishments for this year. As I've said before, my list - my logic. Second of all, who throws a UFO in a quilters face when they are bragging? That's a good way to get stuck with a pin mister. Don't talk about the size of my stash. Don't ask about all the magazines and books. And don't mention the UFO's. Seriously. That's like talking about fight club.

I was actually looking at said quilt today. It is a really big quilt and there is not that much quilting left to do. It's all hand quilted. And since the weather has cooled, it would be nice to have it spread over me while I work on it. I was in the process of quilting it when I got pregnant. I stopped working on it because I would get drowsy and fall asleep mid stitch. I couldn't do anything for long stretches of time back then. I pretty much slept through my first trimester. By the time I got back into quilting, I had other projects to work on. So I think I will go ahead and finish this one up after I put the binding on "El Segundo". In the meantime, I think we're going to have to rent "Fight Club" again.

Gets Lost Using Mapquest Too (But Still Manages to Get There)

I had this fruit and vegetable quit top I made a few years ago when I worked for the National 5 A Day for Better Health Program. My thinking at the time was that I would hang it in my office. I made the top and never got around to quilting it. In the meantime, I moved on to work for a different program, and 5 A Day morphed into the Fruits and Veggies; More Matters campaign. So what to do with the quilt top? I didn't really want to quilt it. And once I got it quilted, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. It was too small to be a charity quilt and I was not interested in hanging on the wall. The problem was that the quilt was no longer speaking with my voice. It's a fine quilt. But if I was going to make this quilt today, it wouldn't look like this. 5 A Day has moved on and so have I.

I don't want UFO's hanging around my studio judging me. If they are not going to be finished, they are going to be repurposed. So I decided to make it into a binder cover. My husband tricked me into cleaning out my cooking magazines by saying that if I had fewer magazines, I could have more cookbooks. So I tore out the recipes I wanted and put them into page protectors. I always intended to cover the binder with fabric or a collage. I even bought the book, "Fast, Fun and Easy Book Cover Art" with the magazine project in mind. Halfway through basting the fruit and vegetable quilt top I thought, "I could use this for the binder cover".


When I was in elementary school, we used to get these exercises where you would start with a word, and then by following the directions, like "cross out all the vowels", and "replace the r's with a's", you would end up with a different word. I rocked the following directions exercise. Somewhere along the way - either in college or grad school - I lost the ability to follow directions. Maybe I stood too close to the speakers at the Palladium. Maybe that research design class burned out some synapses. I don't know. But I managed to bungle almost every step of making this thing. I drew the pattern wrong, I drew it on the wrong side of the interfacing, I didn't get how to put the sleeves on and just made it up, and I managed to break or bend 4 sewing machine needles. And yet, I got the thing together and had fun doing it. It is important to be able to follow directions. It is equally important to be able to improvise. And I think that it is a credit to Jake Finch that even if you don't follow her directions exactly, you can still complete the project.


There is still a nice hunk of the old quilt top left. I think I'm going use the rest to make an apron. Somehow, I've been infected with the apron making bug that seems to be going around. It would be cool to have an apron that matched my recipe file. By the way, I don't follow the directions on recipes either.

A Y-Seam Is Thing of Beauty That Is A Joy to Behold

I have two projects that will probably take 100 years to finish. One is my coffee quilt. It took 60 years to decide on a design, another 45 to pick out the fabrics, and I have been piecing it since the dawn of time. Not easy since I was only born in 1972. It is progressing so slowly because I get distracted by other projects and set the Coffee Quilt aside. I think I finished 3 or 4 other projects in the time I have been working on this one. But I recently picked it up again. I can't seem to get to my other projects because I just don't have time right now. The coffee quilt is hand pieced so I can work on it while the baby naps or plays or destroys the house. This is what I mean about hand work being easier. Kevin's quilt is waiting to be machine quilted and the foundation piecing needs to be completed on the Weeping quilt. I can't work on the machine AND watch the baby unroll the jumbo roll of toilet paper. The fabric for the artichoke quilt needs to be painted but there is no way I'm breaking out the paints while you-know-who is awake. So you see the advantage of hand piecing?

Anywho, the coffee quilt is made up of diamonds (it's a coffee quilt because of the colors). Originally it was going to be a traditional baby block quilt. I know. I don't know why it took so long to come up with that. I have about a bajillion bably blocks to sew. Here's what they look like put together:


This is going to seem weird to some people, but I really like Y-seams. They give me and odd sense of satisfaction. To me, this is a thing of beauty.


Then I got bored and started making blocks that look like this:


So who knows what the quilt is going to end up looking like. I'm kind of curious to see myself. The other 100 year quilt is from Jinny Beyer's book and it is blue. It is also hand pieced diamonds. I can't show you a picture becasuse the pieces are safely in their case, buried under a pile of stuff. If I pull the case out, I run the risk of the pile collapsing and being trapped under a pile of UFO's. Then the baby and the cats would take possession of the house.