Friday, September 07, 2007

Keeping up with the Joneses

First off -- Happy Birthday, Jocelyn! My little girl is 23 years old today! And I am turning into one of those crazy adults who mutters things like, "My, how time flies."

Now on to the Joneses. There are some very energetic quilters out there in Blogland. While I don't wish to measure my productivity against the ridiculous standard of what everyone else is accomplishing, I do feel inspired by the start of a new quilting year, so to speak, as the school bells are ringing again and the mornings have a slight nip in the air (actually, the latter hasn't happened yet but, Mr. Weatherman, please take the suggestion). So I am going to lay out a few projects and plans. The list is not definitive, but thinking aloud is helpful.

1. I am back in school! At least, I'm taking an online quilting class with Lazy Gal Tonya to learn to be a little more wonky. You can check out her blog here and scroll down the sidebar to find links to all her tutorials. So far, this has really been a good class and we just got a new assignment today! I'm going to work hard at not letting other things interfere with what I want to do in this course.

2. We need a quilt for the wall behind our couch. I have some ideas (inspired by Sandi Cummings' book, Thinking Outside the Block) but need to JUST DO IT.

3. By September 30, I need to finish the Happy Houses quilt for a Project Linus Make A Blanket Day demo.

4. This past week brought me a couple UPS deliveries. The first was two big boxes from my sister. Her husband is in the military and they are packing up for a tour in Germany. Rather than taking all their t-shirts from past assignments with them, she sent them to me to put into a quilt -- more like ten quilts! She said to use the best and toss the rest. It should be fun, though finding fabrics to coordinate will be a challenge as military colors are not my usual color scheme.
4. I bought some Asian fabrics from a fellow blogger who is clearing out her collection of those to make room for fabrics that fit her current interests. We both win! I love the look of Asian fabrics and have a scrappy quilt I plan to make for someone who is very into all things Asian.
5. And of course -- I want to finish two more I Spy quilts before the holidays (one is almost done), complete my Stroop quilt, make some things for the guild bazaar at the quilt show, and put some patterns on the Hearts for Linus blog I do for the guild.

Hmmm... all this without looking at my list of projects, which is pretty long. I think I can accomplish all this IF I can keep organized and work out a system. Time to hop to it!

14 comments:

dot said...

As I read ypur post today it semms to me like you are a very busy lady. Don't be to hard on yourself.

Ming said...

Don't we all have a BIG list in mind? Yours sounds very challenging. Have fun!

Darlene said...

The list will continue to grow. Try not to focus on the long list and just relax and enjoy your journey. Yes, it's very difficult to do but do try. :-)

The Calico Cat said...

For the military quilt, you could get away with Red, White, & blue, frame each shirt, then you can set like a trip around the world or checkerboard or straight furrows according to the color. (trite, I know.)

Or you can go with green & gold...

I would not pay attention to the individual shirts for the color inspiration... think about your I Spys, all of the novelties don't "go" with the point color, but the over all effect works.

Using my example above, if you do trip around the world - that is what people will see - because that is the graphic element. Oh & if you go super scrappy, you can mix in maroon with the reds & match the shirt that is showing...

Michael5000 said...

Wow, your list seems really ambitious... and then I realized it's shorter than mine, which is really frightening.

A friend proposed that we get together for a picnic to celebrate the end of summer this weekend, and I almost turned them down so I wouldn't lose the quilting time. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. Got to have some perspective on this stuff.

loulee said...

I make no such plans, I go where and when my muse takes me. It can be a roller coaster at times. Good luck.

Andrea said...

As my teenage daughter would say - sounds like a plan !! Good luck with getting it all done. Since I found quilt blogs all my plans go out the window. Just too much inspiration out there !

JoAnna said...

Rock on. Save some time for eating... The asian fabrics are lovely. What a great find!

Tonya Ricucci said...

see, that's why I never list all the quilts I want to get done. feels too daunting and/or depressing. get to work on that assignment though - glad to see that's number one!

Pam said...

That does look like a good list - you will be busy.

I didn't know that Tonya had such a list of tutorial on her sidebar - thanks for that info - I will have to try something wonky one day. I do enjoy reading her blog.

I took a workshop from Sandi Cummings and enjoyed it very much, but then never did anything with the blocks I made there. Have fun with her book.

Laurel said...

Wow, I am so envious of the time you can spend on your quilting! I am dying to see what you do with Kathi's t-shirts. I didn't know you could make quilts with that stretchy stuff. Good luck. Please post your assignments for Tonya, whose blog I discovered through yours (so cool!) and wish I could take a class like that too. I will live vicariously through you.

mereth said...

Let's hope the letters don't give you too much trouble, I'm onto my second batch now and my attitude is getting wonkier by the minute. You realise after a while that it truly doesn't matter and it will all be used somewhere.
Good luck with the list, I like making them too, even if I don't stick to them.

Gregory said...

I don't understand why the quilting year is the same as the school year. Quilting should have its own year... perhaps from February 15 through March 30. That is just one possibility--I'm not trying to dictate anything.

The Stroop quilt is a great idea. Or perhaps it should be your Jasper Johns quilt.

laura west kong said...

Don't let other people's ambitiousness get in the way of your fun! And I should probably also say, don't let your own ambition get in the way of your fun. I'm sure you could do all of that in a year if you divide it up by months or seasons, or however is most comfortable for you.

happy quilting!