The Swoooooooon Train

Yes, I jumped aboard.
What an awesome block! I have yet to see one that I don't like. Because of their size (24 inches square) they make a real statement. Here's mine:

Quilt me a river.

From very early on, this postage stamp quilt reminded of the township and range plating system so much in evidence in Kansas. When I was in college, I spent one summer working for the Kansas Geological Survey measuring gravity across the state. (If you stay in one place all day and measure the gravity, you will see 'tides'; when the measurements are plotted on a graph, there will be two high points and two low points each day -- solid earth tides, just like ocean tides, caused by the pull of the moon. The data we collected helped reveal the Kansas sub-surface.) We drove the country roads of rural Kansas and they mostly follow the grid of the one mile squares of the township and range. This may be the source of my love of the geometric and rectilinear! Anyway, I love the tidy order of these crisp postage stamp squares, but they seemed to want some.... geography.

So I am quilting a river system on them! Well, sort of. There will be a diagonal line with two 'tributary' lines coming in from either side. Then, I will just sort of echo-quilt the rest of the space.

We'll see how this works out....

Looking back, looking forward

As have many of us quilty bloggers, I have been looking back on the old year and looking with anticipation and hope at the new year.

I didn't have many completions last year -- only 6. I am pretty pleased with all of them, but, well -- six.



I hope to up the ante this year. My HMQG amigas Amy, Liz and Safieh have started the "12 in '12" Challenge. At first I thought "NO WAY!" But then I thought this just might be do-able. I already had my first finish: I put the last tie into my corduroy quilt and while it isn't strictly *my* quilt (OK, it isn't at all my quilt, I just finished a completed top), I *am* counting it. It took a while because all of the cats LOVE it and one of them is nearly always sleeping on it. I ran it through the washer and dryer and it seems to not be as jewel-bright as it was and the ties have lost the "crows flying over paddocks" (thanks Rachael Daisy!) look that they had -- now they look more like night crawlers -- it is still a wonderfully cuddle-y quilt.



I've got FIVE quilts ready to be quilted or tied. One is already 'under the needle'. And once I free up some of my safety pins, the others are ready to be sandwiched.



I have partially assembled parts for FIVE more quilts. I may have all of pieces cut for the Shirts and Slacks quilt (made with my Mom's shirts) and I have been working away on it recently. It still makes me a little melancholy working with them, but I really want to see them turned into a quilt. Also here are those hexagons from the beginning of 2011, a more-than-half completed lemon-y zigzag top, the indigo stars that I began last summer and a new project, just begun, inspired by a painting by Sol Lewitt.



And I have stacks of fabric that have been tugging at my sleeve, saying they are tired of being just yard goods, all wanting to be quilts. There are SEVEN incipient quilts here -- a few I even have ideas for how I want to use them! Those goofy, really old-school calicos that I just can't bring myself to get rid of, I am thinking of using them with Jenny's Quick Curve Ruler (or maybe some of the Japanese prints that I have stowed away -- or maybe BOTH). My quilter's eye has been taken by i'm a ginger monkey's Swoon-Along. Perhaps the Marcia Derse prints would work for that. And elegantitus is doing a Gentleman's Fancy man-quilt -- I am thinking about those browns that I got at the beginning of last year for that. I want to make one of those jelly roll race quilts, the Just Wing It roll would be perfect. The Modern Quilt Guild will be having a juried show at this year's Quilt Festival -- I have an idea for those Stonehenge prints that I hope will be awesome. The charm squares and text-y prints came together just recently, maybe something inspired by Rex Ray? And there are the gorgeous Echinos that my Mother-in-law gave me for Christmas.....



So with the things that are more than a pile of fabric: 1 finish, 5 to quilt, 5 pile of parts -- that is 11 quilts right there. Then the 7 more that are just fabric and glints in my eye -- that's 16. And the many more that I'm sure will grab my attention this year, shoot, I could probably finish 20 -- or MORE!

Easy peasey, right?