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.

It's here. (or there-->)

Blogger's insistent repositioning of photos to the top of a post for no apparent reason is a major hassle when you're trying to write up a tutorial. Nonetheless, I persevered, battling through congestion, brainfarts and repeated trips into town to pick up the drunkards, to produce the instructions for a miniature version of the Stairways to Heaven quilt, with a completely re-jigged bit on which fabrics go with which. If you like to label things and be told exactly what to do, use the big one. If you want to go with the flow and pair your fabrics in a more natural, organic fashion, these are the instructions for you.

This quilt top only needs 20cm each of 6 fabrics - a quarter yard is plenty if you buy in the American fashion. Of course, because of this it only comes out baby sized, but it makes for a damn stylishly rugged up baby.

Over the next week or so I suspect I'll come up with a bajillion different versions of these two quilts - Today alone I've decided that it would be easy to make with some funky jelly rolls and a solid, and I'm considering doing something with my rainbow of bright solid fabrics and perhaps a black.

I've cut and strip pieced a match to this one in brown, pink and orange, but when I realised it was taking me three times as long as usual to get even the blue, green and brown one done, I gave up my plan of making them simultaneously.

Still, I got one all done and that's enough, so here it is. The Baby Sized Stairways to Heaven Quilt. For future reference, it's over to your right under Pages.

A quick note: it says to use straight cuts but so long as you've double checked it's at least 21 inches on the long side and 15 on the short, you could use a fat quarter. I've had some that vary wildly though, so check first.

Here's a preview...