January 1, 2010

Resolutions time! I always start the new year with the resolution, to finish 2 projects for every new one I start, and then to finish the new ones too. I do pretty good for a while, finish small things or almost done items, those that are closest to being finished are my favorite, almost instant gratification. I've put a lot of work into some of these things, that have been sitting around for a while, some just need quilting, some need borders or assembly, some need lots of work. I have a "to do" list with current or older projects, that I cross off as I do them, or move them up to the "to Quilt" list. Last years list had a respectable amount of red lines crossing items off the list. It feels REALLY GOOD to finish something!!! I am a great starter!! I love to move onto the the next project, next piece of pretty fabric, next technique to try, my mind is always rushing on to the next thing. I do have lots of patience however, and I will get compulsive about the tedious parts, if I really want something done, but it is easy to distract me. Having the long arm quilting machine has really helped. I can finish some of the larger projects, sets of old blocks, scrap quilts that kept getting larger, round robins that got too big to quilt on my regular machine. So after Christmas, most of my deadline stuff is done, so I just wanted to do some basic piecing. I found a set of blocks from a snail mail trade of "Hole in the Barn Door" blocks with a light blue on white china pattern in the center. I had traded them in 1997-98 and had 20 blocks, with signatures and dates. I added sashing and borders and finished a nice large quilt top, ready to quilt, when I can find 5 yards of backing fabric. Then I got out a set of blocks from a secret pal exchange, also snail mail from 1998, these went together with sashing and corner stones, and borders. When I received the blocks I had went out and bought 2 yards of matching hummingbird fabric, I know I have it somewhere!!! But do you think I could find it? After 2 days of searching, I gave up and used a pansy print, that was a close match to another fabric in the blocks, same manufacturerer and colorway. The sashing is purple, the blocks have gold and lavender, purple and violet. The piecing was very relaxing, something I hadn't done in a while, no stress, just passing the fabric through the sewing machine. I need that sometimes, just mindless sewing, routine and boring. So now I have 2 tops ready to quilt, yeah! So much for my earlier blog about being creative and getting the juices flowing. I do like traditional quilting, it is what got me involved in quilting in the first place. I also especially like vintage fabric and blocks, and 1920's reproduction fabric, in traditional settings.