The week flew by

The first week of the month is often very, very busy.  This week was first week.  And, it was very, very, very busy.  Fortunately, most of the people around me are equally busy the first week of the month, so it's nice and quiet. 

On Monday, I decided to take a hand project to guild.  And, I picked this one.  Now, when someone says "not my style", THIS is the project they're talking about. 

I bought this project as a UFO at a guild boutique.  I don't know what I was drawn to, except it is a tumbling block and I've never made a tumbling block.  Or maybe it was because I had never done any paper piecing.  Who knows.  I bet I didn't pay more than $2 for it.  Anyway, I started cutting paper and diamonds and did some basting and I've sewn a few new blocks together.  I think I'm going to get about 20 more blocks.  And, there is a piece of perfectly matching dark blue fabric to go with it.  We will see what it grows up to be.

Best part is, I won't have any trouble walking away from it when something else shiny comes along. 

But, I did decide I needed a new pincushion because of it.  I would say the mind works in mysterious ways, but the truth is, I needed a distraction at work for my rest breaks and searching for pincushion patterns was more fun than reading the news.  So, it's not all that mysterious.  I came up with this. 

I had a small piece of wool that I cut into 2.5" squares.  And, I added a tan cotton strip cut 1.25".  And, I sewed them together with a 1/8" seam.  I added a couple buttons and some pearl cotton thread.  It's not fancy, but it is quite a manly pincushion...you know...as pincushions go.  Pincushions aren't really famous for shouting "butch" much.

How about some more purple.  You wouldn't know I don't use much purple if this is the only post of mine you read. 

The Linus quilt is quilted.  I did the Swirly Vine pattern from Wendy Sheppard's book in the coin columns.  They have a bit of a direction in such a narrow space, so I alternated the direction they flow from column to column.  And, yes, that was a pain that I probably could have skipped on a Linus quilt, so let's just not talk about it.  I made up for it by not quilting anything in the purple sashing. 

In the outer border, I did something I read about in someone else's blog several years ago.  I used one of the stitches my machine makes, maybe called the serpentine stitch.  I used a light back, so I used a variegated thread on top and white thread on the back. 

I also caught up on some Barbara Brackman BOM blocks last weekend.  These are from her Antebellum Album series.  I still haven't finished the last one.  The blocks are made, the layout decided.  I even know who I'd like to give it to.  And, there it languishes.  Incomplete.  Maybe I'll finish it before end of year when these blocks are done.  If you're following Barbara's Civil War Quilts blog, then you may notice that I took some liberties with my blocks.  Uhm...my blocks. 

Everybody have a wonderful Friday and a great weekend.  The trees are blossoming, I've had many Iris.

And, like all gardeners, I can't wait to see what's going to bloom next. 

I need to spend a few minutes today deciding what I want to focus on this weekend.  I have to make a baby quilt.  But, I just spent my baby quilt mojo on that pink Dresden plate quilt.  And, I am having no end of trouble coming up with a new idea.  The frontrunner would need to be made in reproduction fabrics.  And, I just made a quilt with reproduction fabrics.  Remember that gardener thing...what's next?  It's kind of a difficult pattern.  The second front runner is an easy, easy, easy pattern.  So, right now, I'm trying to decide just how much I like my co-worker whose wife is expecting.  That's a tough spot for a person to be in, right?  Someone deciding how much they like you?  A quilt in the balance?

It's not really that hard.  He's a really nice guy that throws me great, high profile projects every so often, even though we work in completely different regions.  I gotta like somebody that makes me look good.  The least I can do is make his baby look good, right?  Right??

Anyway, that's what I'm going to be focused on.  Because right now, I have cr....uhm, stuff spread all over the studio, hoping something will slap me and inspire me, but it didn't, so I pulled out my pattern books.  Honestly, I'd like nothing better than to pull out another Linus and finish because those are just for fun.  I like just for fun project.  No pressure. 

Now, what are you sitting there reading for?  Go sew.  I'm going to. 

Not really.  I'm going to spend 15 minutes putting some of this cr...uhm, stuff away.

Lane