I received a response to an email I sent a couple of weeks ago to my oldest DD’s music teacher this morning, and he apologized for the lateness of his reply. He said “I put the band back together I should have my head examined.” My instant thought was “been there, done that.” I wrote back: “Isn’t it funny how we work so hard to do something we think we want to do, and then once we’re in the middle of it, we wonder if we were crazy? I do it all the time.”

Not with a band, of course, since I absolutely don’t play any instruments, but I definitely do over commit myself to myself and my art, and it needs to stop. Take this last quilt for example. I’ll let the cat out of the bag here: the Grasping Reality: Fifteen quilt is headed for the MAQS New Quilts from an Old Favorite contest this year. The theme block is the Rose of Sharon (one variation is shown here), and I brainstormed for a year off and on to come up with an idea for a design. The Rose of Sharon is one of those quilt blocks that I’ve never liked, and I’d never make a quilt out of it using the traditional block, so I thought it would be quite a coup if I could design a quilt that I love based on a block that I dislike.

I’d given up finally when nothing seemed right, because I didn’t want to be rushed on it by a deadline and time was marching on. Unfortunately, though the conscious part of my brain knew that I shouldn’t keep thinking about the contest and a design, my subconscious was still hard at work, and when I saw Chelsea’s drawing, I was inspired to make it into a quilt for the MAQS contest and time was already a bit short.

Maybe I should have had my head examined. Read the rest of this entry »

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I found this Blogthing that looked like fun, so I took the little quiz, and here’s how it came out:

You Belong in Winter

Quiet, calm, and totally at peace… You’re happy to be at home, wrapped in a blanket, completely snowed in Whether you’re lighting a fire or having a snowball fight, you always feel best in the winter.

Those of you who know me are probably snickering right now, since it’s soooo true (except the part about snowball fights!). I’m such an indoor girl, and I can’t wait for it to start being winter-ish! I love sweaters, fires, snow (if it’s outside and I’m in!) and winter cooking, if I really must cook at all! And quilts are a cozy warm thing too, so it all fits together nicely.

I’m having a quilt day today: I put more crystals on the Grasping Reality quilt, choose fabrics for my next project and worked on the design a bit (more on that later!). Coincidentially, the fabrics I’m planning to use do look slightly winter-ish, except for a splash of purple I threw in with the dark to light grey-blues. I’ll be spending the evening on some math, working out fabric requirements for this new quilt. It’s been a while since I spent a whole day just doing quilting things, and it’s been really nice! What did you do this fine autumn weekend?

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I did go to the Gussy Goose Craft Bazaar, though I thought I might not when I woke up this morning feeling worse than I did yesterday. Still fighting the cold! I talked with many nice people at the bazaar about the Machine Quilting CD Workshop, and quilting and machines in general. There’s a chance I may be teaching a beginning machine quilting class at the Gussy Goose in the near future, so if you’ve been waiting for that give them a call.

I asked my oldest DD to go with me to the bazaar, and we had a nice outing together. She looked around a bit at the bazaar and bought a sweet smelling candle, and we did a bit of quick shopping together after. It was good to get out of the house and away from my computer which has eaten up a lot of my quilting time lately, and of course, drive my new toy, which is always fun!

I’ve been doing some quilting blog surfing this evening and ran across one by another quilter in Germany, Kristen LaFlamme. I enjoyed the time I spent there reading and looking at her quilts. I like her writing style, and her posts are interesting as well. Her quilt, Quiltstadt, is just wonderful, and inspires me to make a house quilt someday. Have a visit!

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