Not Really Making Quilts

If you have been following Emma's blog lately, you'll notice that she has great blog titles, as well as fantastic quilts to see. There's been Inspiration, Speculation, Celebration, Obsession, Anticipation, just to name a few. In keeping with this simple thought, here's my take on why you haven't been seeing finished quilts here lately...

1. Loneliness - I had proposed to my mom to jointly make a donation quilt. I thought she'd love it. I had a bunch of fishy novelties I wanted used up too. I made my 6-12" blocks. Turns out she doesn't really want to make "fish", sigh. I think she just doesn't want to sew. Oh well, here's 3 of my 6 brightly colored fish blocks. I will gather the fabrics I gave her this week and make my other 6 blocks for this Linus quilt myself.
2. Meticulation (is this a word??)- I spent time last week doing bullion embroidery on the front of Sophie's birthday dress. Very time consuming, but well worth it! The roses blend a bit, but are quite pretty.

3. Perfection - A lovely bodice/neck is done. The "Coin" Fairy Frost is absolutely perfect with this fairy material. It shimmers perfectly. I also used it on some sleeve and bodice piping, and the bottom of the dress will have a band of it. She'll ring in her 3rd year next month in high toddler style.

4. Obligation - I'm working on blocks for the row robin I am doing. Diane has selected "Monochromatic, Big-Small" as her theme. We are making a one color row with a larger and smaller block. Here's a couple of my blocks. The blocks are now done and need assembling into a 60" row. I love the aquas, and my styles for blocks turned out nicely I think. Of course I did one of these blocks (like I haven't seen enough of them lately in the 4SQS summer block swap!). I did 4 different blocks - I'll post the finished row soon so you may see the others too.

5. Exhaustion - I am just tired of this quilt. It's Sophie's dress quilt and this Saturday is the day it's being turned in for the Maine Quilt Show. The longer it is around, the more I find to do on it. It needed a label, but I did more hand quilting too. It needs a cloth bag made and it is DONE. The picture on the label is hard to really see well, but it's a shot I took recently of her wearing a dress I started kindergarten in. It was a cute profile shot, or so I thought. The inscription reads:

"My sweetest little girl, My only little girl, and my favorite reason for making pretty dresses".

Seemed appropriate~

6. Pandemonium - As if sorting nearly 1100 blocks to over 50 recipients is not enough, the 1st mailing of the 4SQS summer block swap left me with other things to do/worry about. I discovered one person should have gotten 40 blocks not 20, but I discovered this after all the "choices" of blocks were expired. I had 4 different blocks left when I realized it! She'll get her blocks at the next mailing. I also discovered over a dozen blocks with errors when I was sorting the packages. I pulled these aside and used my personal blocks. I had no way of knowing who to send them back to at that point. Talk about more Frustration. So, yesterday I took each of these apart and resewed them so that they could eventually be used. Not fun, but productive.

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7. Procrastination - Procrastination sewing because our summer weather finally arrived. It rained much of June, sew or so I chose to sew at naptime. Last week the rain stopped. There are few things that I love as much as sewing/quilting - few places that I get absolute peace and serenity. My gardens are one of them. Here are a few pictures I added to my other blog last night of the glorious colors that surround my house. It's a magnificent spectacle of color!! As all of you Australians are suffering with the middle of your winter, let this bring you some warmth :-)