Building blocks

I love making quilt blocks, they are my foundation, so to speak. Combining fabrics & assembling them into blocks -- it is so much fun! I know I am not alone in this thinking. One can easily find stacks of un-assembled blocks at garage sale, estate sales, antique malls, any of our storage closets. A quilt block is an independent unit that, when combined with her sister blocks, will make a beautiful whole. I can't think of another creative process that has anything similar, do you?

I've got quite an array going on right now.

Wayward blogger

I am a few months away from the 6th anniversary of my blog.

I began my blog at the suggestion of my young friend, Bryanna. Back then, everyone & their pet hog had a blog, so I wanted one, too. A place to show what I was stitching on, share thoughts, get advice -- it sounded fun. And it was fun. I was brand new to social media & I immediately loved blogging. I have always been a shy, square-peg with self esteem issues, a combination that makes it very hard for me to make connections with people in real life. The semi-anonymity of writing & sharing under an assumed name was freeing.

What I did expect from my blog? I don't remember. It seemed many of the young quilting bloggers were managing to turn their blogs into book deals, fabric lines, fame, fortune. I suspect I wanted that. But, really, what a shy, square-peg with self esteem issues was going to do with fame & fortune, I don't know. Luckily, it never happened. Blogging through those hard years of my Mother's decline, death, was a real lifesaver. Then there was the sharing of things I was making -- somehow, in the whole Worldwide Web, I found similar thinking quilt-makers. I have gotten the kind of encouragement & support I never got at any guild. It has been a joy, because, better than fame & fortune, I found friends.

Now years have passed. My friend, Bry, has moved away, no longer quilts, no longer blogs, but I continue on. Well, sort of. My life is much simpler now, but I've gotten quite lazy, my posts are pretty rare. But I want to do better. I want to maintain the connections with friends-I've-never-met. So I am promising to check in more often, maybe just some pictures, a line or two. Enough to say "hi" & "thank you" to my friends.

Finally finished & on to new things

I quite literally let out a "WHOOP" when I finished the plum & gray quilt. (I don't know why, even though it seems a little pretentious, I feel compelled to name my quilts. This one I have dubbed "Rock the Casbah". The rich colors & the pattern make me think of Morocco. And then there is the memory of walking past my 3 or 4-year-old niece's room, she was in there playing with her dolls & singing "rock the casbah, rock the casbah". So, the plum & gray quilt is "Rock the Casbah".) Then I said a prayer to the goddess of quilts in transit & sent it on a journey to its owner.

It arrived safely & -- my Birthday Girl loved it. So pleased, so relieved. Her sister said the nicest thing, "it really is "her"". {happy sigh}

After that, there was a period of post-finish slump, that little let-down after something you have worked on long & hard is finally done. Then I started thinking about what is next. Of course, there are the WIPs/UFOs I pulled out as diversions while working on Rock the Casbah -- WIPs still, just a little farther along. And there are the new projects I began, also as diversions -- broken dishes with the 60s prints, hummingbirds with Cherrywood scraps, string blocks. But, something new, what could that be? Handwork, hand-sewing, has been on my mind. Appliqué? English paper piecing? Plain, old hand-piecing? Hmmm? Well, since moderation is not my strong suit, how about one of each? I was in the process of planning 2 queen-sized EEP quilts & a hand-pieced quilt & a big 4-block applique quilt, when I gave myself a shake & said, "hold your horses, Big Eyes, lets keep your focus small." So I am thinking of a 4-block applique (or maybe just one block, we'll see) with EEP hexagon flowers & a second project of hand-pieced bow ties. Those sound do-able!