Hat on Top, Coat Below
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Quilt Done and Quilts To Do
August 7, 2008
This past Sunday I finished up this latest group baby quilt made by the crafty ladies of Purple Systems. Of the four or so we’ve done, I had the least input on this one. Other people picked the colors and came up with the design and cut the pieces and did the fusible applique. I did do the decorative stitching on six of the blocks, which gave me a good opportunity to try out some of the many stitches on my Bernina. I also went to the top assembly party one Friday after work, where we decided on the layout for the blocks and pinned and sewed and ironed them together. One of the women took it home from there to do the quilting, then passed in on to me to do the binding. I did pick the fabric for the binding, using a favorite brights on black stripe that I’ve put into several other baby quilts. As it turned out, the baby the quilt is for was born on Monday.
Now that that baby quilt is done, I need to decide what project comes next. (A more organized person would probably have decided that during the lull between the sewing party and the quilting getting done, but it didn’t even occur to me.) Since I haven’t done a full update of my quilting to list since February of last year, this seems like a good time to do that. I’ve gotten nine quilts done since I did my last list: Skiing in the Trees (a.k.a. Treehouse for the Modern Quiltalong), Weasel Four-Patch, Go Mice Go, Ark Quilt III, Trucks Quilt, Harry Potter Baby Quilt, Basket, Zig Zag, and Animal 123. I believe at least six of those quilts were on the last list; I say “believe” because I have forgotten what my code was for designating the babies instead of using their names, which I didn’t want to do on the chance that one of the parents was reading my journal and would know I was planning a quilt for their child and would start wondering when exactly I planned to get moving on that. I think I’ve figured it out but the quilts I made don’t quite match the babies the code would seem to point to—if Denise’s Ben was Baby Boy SL and Jen’s Boo was Baby Girl SC, then I got eight of ten done from the list, with Basket being a spur of the moment inspiration, but SL and SC aren’t what the code works out to for Ben and Boo, so maybe SL and SC are the issue of coworkers who left before I got their quilts done or whom I decided I didn’t know well enough after all to do a quilt for (that’s more and more the case as Purple Systems grows). I don’t want to spend any more time trying to figure it out; this time I’m going to write down the code in my planner where I looked for it this time. Anyway, here’s the new list:
1. Safe House Rail Fence. This is one of those “the internet can be a very cool place” deals. Cattywampus, a fellow member of the quilters group on Ravelry, had a quilt top she wanted to donate to a good cause. I suggested she consider giving it to my guild, which makes quilts for a domestic violence shelter; each child and many of the mothers who come through the program get a quilt to use while they’re in the shelter and then get to take it with them when they move on. She agreed and the top is now on my felt wall. I decided I didn’t want to entrust it to the randomness of the Safe House pool, so I’m going to finish it up myself. I’m targeting getting it done for the next meeting, which is in September.
2. & 3. Baby Boys NHa & NHb. They’re twins. They’re already eight months old.
4. Baby Girl NW. She’s a singleton, also eight months old—no, I think it’s nine months now.
5. Strippy scrappy. The guild whose retreat I’ve been working on these blocks during didn’t have one this year, so I guess I’ll have to move this along on my own.
6. Baby Girl FC. She’s not even born yet, so I feel like I have plenty of time.
7. Butterflies & Flowers. A carryover from the last list. I should make sure the recipient still wants this, as it didn’t come up the last time I visited her, though the space it’s supposed to hang in is still empty.
8. Wall hanging for office. I could just bring in different quilts from home, but it would be nice to have something new.
9. Train patches. I never look at Dad’s patch collection when it’s in the box in the basement; it would be good to get it where I will see them more often.
10. Calendar quilt. The project that just keeps getting rolled forward. I think I need to set a deadline for myself on this one to have any hope of getting it done.
In other quilty news, I sorted through the pictures I took at the guild show and narrowed them down to this set on Flickr. Even after I deleted the ones that were redundant or too blurry/dark/overexposed or not as interesting as I thought when I took the shot, there were still 63 left, which seems like a lot for a local show, but it’s a big guild and there are some very talented people in it. One of these even-numbered years I’ll have to get my act together and enter something in the show. Maybe that’s an appropriate deadline for the calendar quilt.