I think...

I quilt too much. I quilt like I shop. Impulsively, and with little thought regarding what I will do with them one I have them.

So I've finished over 40 quilts now. Taking out of that count the four at Helen's, two at Kelsey's, one of Maddy's, four on my bed, one on my wall and one in my swag, and one that's been sold to the lady from Flannies that she still hasn't picked up yet, and thats still 26 quilts that have no home or designated use. And I've started another one. Because clearly, I need another one. It's blue and green solids with a few spotty fabrics in there too. A boy quilt, for if should I find myself "needing" one.

Unfortunately, although there was allegedly some sunshine this morning, I slept through it so no pretty on-the-grass photos from me. I have some flat out on the kitchen floor photos though.

The last one had a solid back - the advantage of a quilt less than 110cm wide. I really love the backs done with the big random squares though. The blue one especially. It's fun piecing stuff randomly and hoping for the best, and it's even better when it works out.

My big problem now is that lately I have been getting around to the fabrics I had assigned to projects for myself. It's fine when it's only a technical experiment or a casual urge to work with some certain fabrics but Autumn Nutmeg was for me, the Mingle Star quilt, once the bindings get here, is for me, and I'm starting to worry that eventually I will end up as a terrible inverted version of princess and the pea, except instead of sleeping on a dozen mattresses I will be crushed under the weight of hundreds of quilts. And then you'll all have to hack my blogger account, and I haven't even written up a will regarding my stash yet.

I should have a think about doing that. And updating my completed quilts list. And cleaning my room, charging my camera(s - I bought a hot pink 10MP Fujifilm one today for $60), mending some clothes and backing up my computer.

There, all thought about. Not done, obviously, but I've thought about doing them, and decided to go to bed instead. I'm good at making decisions like that.

Apologies for the cheese induced delirium.

Do you ever wonder what happened to those people who dropped out of the blogosphere? The ones that used to post all the time, that you followed the lives of, who one day just... vanished? I always hope they're doing fine, living their lives without sharing them with the world but sometimes I worry. I worry that something happened to them, that there's a reason they're not online anymore.

There was a thing on facebook a while ago that said "After I die, I give you permission to hack my account and change my status to is chillin with jesus" - I'm not at all religious and nor do I believe in an afterlife, but the point stands. Should something happen to me, I expect someone to hack my account* and let everyone know. And for someone to finish up my half done quilts.

Speaking of half done quilts, I now have four less. That still leaves one unfinished top, five quilts than need a back and basting, two that need quilting, and two that need binding. But that's ten of a total fifty, or an 80% completion rate. I'm happy with that.

I've also realised that if you must bind, bind lots. Binding feels like it takes forever, and forever takes just as long if you do it four times as if you'd done it once. Admittedly tonight I only did the second (and third, because I bind in my own special way) lots of sewing - I'd sewn them on and done the join and ironed them around and pinned them down last night. It would seem that what I've actually decided is that if you must suffer through multiple eternities, make them all different.

Or, possibly, what's really happened is that I've eaten too much cheese and become a bit delirious.

Anyway, back to the point. Four more quilts are now all bound and ready to wash and crinklify*

45, 39, 36 and 18

Two are in the machine now, and I'll put the others in when they're done, and hopefully we'll get 5 minutes of sunshine tomorrow for me to do the photos on the grass thing.

The other thing I've gotten done is the top for quilt # 50.

I love the fabrics and the colours, but I have to admit, they're not right for this pattern. The Falling Leaves fabric having both pink and green in it means that depending on how you're looking at it, the background either merges into the rings or pops to the foreground. I can't help but think of it as my Escher quilt, even though that's really not what I was going for. I'm gunna have a do over - I've had some fabrics in my stash for at least a year now, a pink, blue and green with flowers that should work - it's been in an envelope in a box and I can't remember how big the flowers actually are, but if they're fairly small (I recall them being a bit under an inch across. I could be wrong) then it should be fine.

Parent's should be home tomorrow night, so that should cheer up my dog, prevent my house from making any more threats upon my life, and curb my until-4am sewing seshes. Still, it'll be nice to see them again, as much as it has been nice doing our own thang for the last fortnight.



*if shouldn't be hard - firefox knows all my passwords.
** my submission to the quilting lexicon for 2011.

Cold.

Sometimes I look at even a partly done quilt lying on the floor, and I have a little think about the evolution of my quilts; where maybe I've taken aspects of that design from and what aspects have evolved into other things in other quilts, and it makes me want to go out and get all my other quilts out of their tub in the new shed and maybe see how many of them I can use all at once, which would work well tonight because it's damn cold.

Tonight I did the in the ditch quilting for the Autumn Nutmeg quilt. I'd been putting it off because it's been nearly a year now since I did any sewing in the ditch - echoing is so much easier because it doesn't need to be anywhere near as precise. It was only 6 lines but I grumbled to myself the whole time. I'm glad I managed to pick a thread that went fairly well with all the fabrics - it'll look fine after a wash.

It's also nearly a year since I started quilting - I only in the ditched my first two before switching to the wave stitch and then echoing. And I'm coming up to post #400 - without any actual planning, if I stick to a post a day they'll coincidentally coincide.

Wow. A whole year of getting big bits of fabric, chopping them into little bits and sewing them back together into a big bit again. Where has the year gone?

Sweet...

I am loving loving loving how these backs are turning out.

Finished back to the Blue, Green and Purple Disappearing Nine Patch

Don't get me wrong - it's still feeling like a slog. I think it's the lack of "sew, press, proceed" routine that's getting to me. There isn't really much more of a plan to it than "42cm long, 10, 15 or 20cm wide. Sew into squares to liking"

Back in progress for Autumn Nutmeg Quilt. Edge triangles have been sewn together, but whole square blocks are just lying there. I realised just now that I don't have a photo of the top either, so I'll have to do that tomorrow.

Still, this will be my third back done in a week. That's good progress. Granted, it's not progress on what I should be making progress on (Quilt for Helen for her birthday, 8 days) buuuut... Remember when I said I was gunna get half my unfinished projects done before #50? I'm gunna get there. I've got quilts at every stage; cut but with no piecing done, blocks pieced but not assembled, tops with no backs, basted quilts, quilts with binding half attached, and freshly finished quilts.

I have one to fully bind and one to finish binding on, three, nearly four (with my half done one above) to quilt, and one more (Helen's) to make a back for. And with the two mini zigzag quilts, and the Newsprint Mingle Quilt, that's over half my unfinished quilts all finished!

Well, it will be, when I'm done.

This time, the lack of photos is not my fault...

Today after the earlier post, I sucked it up and started cutting. And I would very much like to show you how far I got, and how it's gunna look, and hop pretty my little piles of ironed out piecings looked, but blogger is having a doozy and wont let me upload images.

Sorry.

For the record, it's just the pink batik, but bigger, and I have done the diagonal joins and ironed them out (all 72 of them) and paired these off and string pieced them, but they haven't been ironed out yet.

I'm guessing at there being at least 3 hours more work in the top to be done tomorrow, but I'm not working so it should be okay. I don't think I'll rush into quilting it (not like me I know) because I'm just not sure what I want from it. there's no more room on my bed and it wont match anywhere in the house - I think it might end up being an "adult" display quilt, as opposed to the little ones which are more kids and babies colours. Which leaves me unsure how to quilt it, and what to do on the back.

When I finally get around to going to spotlight for some pink cotton, I plan on doing the batik quilt with 2 straight lines either side of the seam. Depending on how that goes I'll then work out what to do with this one. The other problem is thread colour - whatever I pick, green red or cream, is going to stand out on 3/4s of the blocks.

Dunno. problem for another day. Bedtime now.