If I want to

Sometimes I'm in the mood to quilt.  And, sometimes, I'm in the mood to sew.  But, I'm rarely in the mood to cut.  Cutting is work.  Stoop, bend, iron, measure, measure, measure, cut, repeat.  If it didn't come with the fun and challenge of original design, we'd all go to precuts, right?

Precuts...now there's an idea.  

I took Good Friday off and it was a Good Friday indeed.  I worked in the greenhouse a couple hours, then the garage for 5 hours.  I took a shower and worked in the kitchen for an hour and then I sat and played the ukulele for an hour and a half, til Rob got home.  It was a very nice day.  I got a lot of things that had been weighing on my mind taken care of.  And, I worked through a lot of what's been on my mind.  

Saturday, I worked in the greenhouse another couple hours and got finished out there and then we did a little shopping and I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up those last 12 wedding ring blocks.  Next step is to lay that quilt out in the floor and determine each block's final placement, then I'll number them and can proceed with final assembly.  Not bad, considering I think I just started that quilt in the middle of January.  While making it, I've made significant progress on my leader/ender, so yesterday, I decided to cut another couple of small projects.  Hey, it's my fabric and if I want to cut it into little pieces, I can.  

The first one is fabrics I bought at the Georgetown quilt show 2021.  Just a handful of scraps, tied with a string.  There was a smaller scale floral that I decided didn't fit, so I removed it and went with the paisley for a focus.  I have plenty of pink and green to make borders.  This is a Burgoyne Surrounded quilt block.  I've wanted to make a quilt of this pattern for years, but for now, one block will have to do.  This should finish at 17".  I'll add a couple of borders and it will be a nice size for a wall hanging.  

This top is based on the center fabric, which I bought at the same quilt show as above and added to the bundle of fabric.  I had 2 8x9" squares.  I kept trying to design a quilt with this as the focus and that pink paisley as well and I couldn't make that work, so I separated this and designed a different quilt around it.  I'm so happy with how it turned out.  It feels so cheerful!  But, that's as close to an ocean waves block as I want to get.  This one is a little bigger and should finish at 30".  

I have another couple to cut out, while I'm in the mood.  There's a Christmas table runner and a Christmas panel with pieced blocks around it.  There's a lone star quilt kit.  And, there are multiple bundles of fabrics I've put together over the years because I thought they'd make pretty quilts.  And, if I cut them all out and leave them unsewn, who cares.  Right now, being creative is my distraction.  And, I certainly have the fabric resources to be as creative as I want.   As I was cleaning out the garage, I found another bin of scraps.  (Holy cow, they're reproducing!  Send help!  Send sewists...I'll provide the machines and thread!)

I'll never sew it all up.  But, I'm gonna put as big a dent in it as I can.  

Not many flowers to show from last week, but this week should be better.  

This Dahlia opened.  Dahlias are sold as annuals here, but I'm hoping this one grows well enough that I can dig it up in the fall and maybe keep it for next year.  My Grandmother grew beautiful dahlias, but I've never had any luck.  I'm trying a less sunny location this year.  Hope it works.  

And, I finally got a nice rose off that bush I stole from the neighbor's yard when the house was bing flipped.  It's not as big as they were last year.  I need to feed it.  I need to feed everything, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.  Like a lot of other things. 

I've been doing 20 minute cleaning during the week.  Most days, there's 20 minutes after breakfast and another 20 after lunch.  Most of that was spent doing those tedious little things that I shoved in a corner rather than put away.  Those are the things that make cleaning so hard to be motivated for.  They're these mini-projects that have to be done before the real project begins.  But, once I'd knocked them all out in my 20 minute cleaning, I was able to make huge progress when I had a long stretch of time to devote to it.  I hope I can remember to do that in the future.  Fill that time that I would have spent reading the bad news with something more productive.   

I need all the distractions I can find.  Anything is better than reading the news.  Anything is better than checking on my retirement account.  Anything is better than thinking about my Latina daughter's future.  For me, that distraction is quilting and gardening.  I hope that you're able to find time to step away from the bad news and take care of yourself.  We need that so much.  

Lane