No, not “Where do old quilters go?” We know the answer to that one, they just go to pieces. I mean, what do I do with all the quilts sitting around the house that we don’t use anymore? I’ve been thinking about this for a while, since about the time we were decluttering the house during the pre-move craziness. I counted the quilts just “sitting around” one day and there were more than a dozen, and that doesn’t include the many wallhangings that are not on the walls at the moment, and might never be again.

I guess this is the prolific quilter’s quandary. I spent at least ten years making a large number of quilts per year. Some I made to go with what was in the house at a particular time, and now the house looks different so they don’t go. Some I made because the fabric spoke to me, and some were class samples for classes I no longer teach. Some were sample quilts for quilt patterns or books I wanted or tried to write that never went anywhere.

Here’s where some of them are at the moment:

Starting from the left:

• Winter Windmills, made as a sample for a pattern for a book that never got written.
• Love at Last Sight, made from a set of Block of the Month blocks called Marching Band.
• Stars & Stripes, one of two that I made like this from a pattern in The Block Book, by Judy Martin.
• The next one is unnamed; it’s the quilt I made from the first set of friendship exchange blocks I ever had in 1995 with the Black Forest Quilters.
• The snowball quilt has a name, but it’s on the label that I actually made, but can’t find at the moment because it never got attached to the quilt. Shame on me. I made this quilt for a class sample in the mid-1990’s

I like all these quilts, and some I’m even attached to like Love at Last Sight, and I suppose that if they weren’t hanging on the rail at the top of the stairs I’d want something else to hang there to soften all that metal. But even some of these I could let go and probably not notice their absence and there are yet more quilts hiding out around the house that I’m not attached to, and that I wouldn’t mind getting rid of if it came down to it. And I’d have more room to store and display the as yet unfinished quilts that are waiting in the wings.

If you don’t have extended family that wants and or will use lots of quilts, which I don’t, what do you do with them all? To be clear, most of the quilts I no longer want or will use are not new quilts; they are quilts that we’ve used at some point, but they no longer go with the overall look and decorating scheme of the house. I haven’t been able to find any place that just needs coverings of any type, whether new or not, to give these quilts to. And they’re not so old and worn out that I just want to throw them in the thrift shop bin either. I’d like to give them to someone who really needs them and will use them.

Your voice: How many older quilts are sitting unused at your house? How do you store or display them? Do you have family or friends who take them, or do you have a charity you donate to?

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Paisley Pavane is on it’s way to Columbus, Ohio, and will be on display at the National Quilt Association Quilt show June 19-21, 2008. At one point, I was planning on going to the show with the quilt, and with my girlfriend Dawn, but ITMan’s new job and the move got in the way.

That’s okay, since that means I have some more time to finish up something really grand to enter in the show when I’m going to be able to be there too. Not that Paisley Pavane isn’t grand, it is, but I have some other things waiting in the wings that might be even better.

The funny thing right now is that in the midst of the pre-move craziness, I entered this quilt into two other shows as well, only one of which I can remember! So I’ll probably be getting a couple of envelopes at some point, with what I hope is good news inside, but I have no idea where one of them will be coming from or when to look for it. This is a great argument for photocopying entry forms before sending them in!

I haven’t entered anything in a show for a while, and I’m really looking forward to some feedback from the judges on this quilt. Paisley Pavane was the Third Place winner in the New Quilts from an Old Favorite contest from MAQS, but even though the quilt gets published in the book and goes on tour and all, you don’t get any feedback in the form of critique or judging sheets from the judges at all. It will also be interesting to see how the quilt fares in a much larger venue than the MAQS contest, where it will be shown with and compared to so many more quilts.

If you’re headed to Columbus for the show, keep an eye out for Paisley Pavane. It’ll be the one sparkling at you from across the room, with it’s 3,000 Swarovski crystals!

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Here’s a short update on the scraps and bits that are the work in progress of life right now:

I’m still working with the lighting in the new studio, trying to get enough of it where I need it. I’ve come to the conclusion that halogen spot lighting is essentially useless, at least it has been for me for everything I’ve tried to use it for. It’s dim and yellowed, and casts shadows in all the wrong places. In other words, while the light that I bought for the studio looks good hanging up there on the ceiling, it’s not much good to actually light up this large room. I actually Googled to try to figure out how many watts I should have in here based on the space, and came up with 900 watts. Heh, 900 watts is a really long way from what I have now, I must say. No wonder I feel like I’m in a cave at night or if it’s cloudy! Back to the hardware store we go…

The owners of the house we’re renting asked us if we would let them leave their household goods in the garage until the second week of May when they would pack it into the overseas shipping crates for the trip to Canada. It was going to cost them 100 Euro per day if they had to pack the crates and then have the stuff stored somewhere until they were ready to ship it all. We agreed thinking it was a great way to build goodwill with the new landlords.

Unfortunately, the stuff is still here in the garage at the beginning of June, and there is no definitive date when it might be leaving at this point. There is evidently some issue with their move and they are awaiting some paper from the Canadian government before they can proceed to pack things up and get on their way. And to top it off, when we ask about it, we’re told we need to be more patient! Patient was two weeks ago, and now we’re on to irritated, and rapidly approaching something even more vehement and ugly. I think I’ve filled up the goodwill account now thanks, and I want my garage so I can park my car in it. Yesterday, if you please. Grrrr.

The heat and humidity makes it difficult to concentrate, or maybe it’s just difficult to want to concentrate. I’m still tossing around the idea of an air conditioner, but I’m worried about the power consumption. I’ve figured out why we’re spending so much more on power and gas: the power company here, despite being the same company that we had in Stuttgart, charges more per kilowatt hour here, and natural gas is just plain expensive when compared with oil. So, I think melting is on the schedule this summer until I figure out if I really want to spend the kind of money it would take to have an air conditioner. Another Grrrr.

And since my new front yard is full of perennials, I’m now suffering from the worst allergies I’ve had in years. When we moved in there were a few daffodils and some hibiscus and that was okay, but now there are huge numbers of flowering “things” out there, and while most of them are pretty (except for the ugly mounds of Iris. Don’t get me started on the ugliest color of Iris blooms I’ve ever laid eyes on), frankly I’d just as soon they all died. Quickly and without throwing their pollen around on their way out! I can’t keep the windows shut of course, or the melting might turn to expiring without even the little bit of relief that the open windows provide. *sigh*

So, with melting and sneezing on the schedule every day right now as we experience the heatwave that is late May and early June in Germany some years and my front yard continuing to bloom in all it’s pollen-laden extravagance, I’ve found it difficult to motivate myself to do much more than the bare minimum, which is why it’s been a quiet week in the blogging department. Maybe I need to become nocturnal for the duration.

And lest you think it’s nothing but bad stuff and complaints for today, the good part is I have 216 Inchies done (of 510 needed) for my current project. I originally hoped I could manage to finish 20 Inchies per week, but I’m feeling pretty good that most weeks I’ve done 36, and some 72 even! Thus I’m way ahead of schedule on this project, which is undoubtedly a good thing since I’m still tossing ideas for a pretty critical part of it around in my head and can’t seem to see the right way forward just yet. Thankfully, there is time. Photo shooting of the 72 Inchies I completed since I put up the Gallery is on the schedule for tomorrow.

Here’s hoping for cloudy with a huge chance of rain! All week!!!

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