So what do your paper towels look like? Seriously, are they patterned, colored or just plain basic white? I ask this because it’s occurred to me lately that I must be completely weird about things like paper goods, dishes, handbags, umbrellas, and all sorts of other everyday things that are not necessarily made of fabric.

The thing that’s brought this to mind just now is that when I went food shopping last week, I had to purchase the giant bulk package of eight rolls of Bounty paper towels, because that was the only package other than the super giant monster pack of 16 rolls that had plain white paper towels in it. (I’m very picky about brands too, which is why I didn’t buy the three-pack of Brawny that were white, but that’s another issue) I’d just told ITMan the week before that we needed paper towels, but not to buy the giant pack of eight rolls since I didn’t think we’d use them all before we moved, which meant that he bought no paper towels at all because all the other packs had printed patterns on the towels, and he knows better.

I suppose I could be considered a certifiable freak about things like this.

UGH. Am I the only person in the world who HATES printed or colored paper goods? Eeeww. ITMan knows by now that colored or printed tissues, TP and paper towels just do not come home from the store. Ever. And this weirdness is not confined to paper goods, oh no. I suppose I could be considered a certifiable freak about things like this.

In clothing, shoes, and accessories like umbrellas and so forth, basic black is the name of the game. Okay, I do have other colors of shoes and handbags, but the overwhelming majority are black, as well as many of my clothes. Plain, unadorned, basic black. It just goes with everything, and maybe that’s what it’s really all about. I used to change my handbag to match my outfit for the day, but that went by the wayside after I had babies. Way too time consuming at that point. So now I pick a purse and use it, sometimes until it dies if it was a really perfect choice in the beginning, and they’re usually black with a very occasional nod to current trends. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

And it’s the thinking part that usually gets me into trouble, you know. Here’s the deal: While I was machine quilting this little wallhanging (it’s “just a get.it.done. item off of the Creativity List:, you remember), I was really enjoying myself. Well, except for those insane arguments with the OCQ and the frogging anyway. But mostly, I was having a ball, and wondering why I felt like this was so different than the norm.

Sounds a bit weird, right? I mean, this quilting thing is supposed to be at least marginally fun all the time, isn’t it? Okay, except for basting, because basting is no fun. But you know what, even as I just typed that out, “basting is no fun,” I realized that even basting this little quilt wasn’t the usual “no fun” process. So what gives?

I’ve had plenty of time in the past few days to think about it, since machine quilting marked patterns is pretty easy and leaves the mind free to wander, and frogging is definitely mind-wandering time. I’ve started wondering if I’ve really been enjoying quilting lately, and I’m starting to think that the answer is “no.” Which is kinda scary.

If I think back to the last time I was truly enthralled with most of a project, my mind comes to rest on Stars in my Hand. That was a great quilt, and I enjoyed making it for the most part. The only thing that wasn’t actually fun was the endless stippling, and part of the reason for the torture was that my hands and arms just can’t take the abuse of tiny stippling anymore, and that quilt really drove the point home.

The quilt I made after that, Grasping Reality, was way outside my box and I know I didn’t enjoy making it as much as many of my other quilts. Stretching boundaries is a good thing, but I think there is such a thing as going too far, and then maybe the potential for true joy in the process is diminished by an inability to rise up and meet your own expectations for success. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

When you have an idea pop into your head, you can try it out immediately, and the result is even better than you’d hoped it would be.

Despite all the misery, this quilt does have it’s enjoyable moments, like this one which is definitely a Quilting WFF. This is what’s supposed to happen when you quilt:

This is one of the machine embroidered medallions in the outside border of The Misery Quilt. I’ve been a bit worried about these medallions since the beginning; the flower is really dense machine embroidery and the medallions are fused to the olive green background fabric and then the edges are sewn with a very small satin stitch in #100 silk thread, and when you put that many variables together, sometimes the finished product isn’t going to lay flat. I’ve been afraid all along that it might end up looking slightly bowl-like and ruffly around the edges in the end.

As an added bonus to the host of unknowns, I really hadn’t figured out how I was going to quilt the gold-ish background fabric behind the flowers either. All I could think of was echo quilting, which is very heavy, close together stitching, and not only might that heighten the chances for a bowl-like, bubbly outcome, echo quiting isn’t my strong point and there are lots of little squidgy points and dips around the edges of the flower, so I wasn’t sure echo quilting in that area was going to go well.

This morning I had an epiphany about the background quilting, and thought that these radial lines might be cool, since the area could probably use some straight quilting lines anyway. I took a wild “hey that looks about right” guess and figured that dividing up the outside edge of the oval into 3/8″ bits would look good, and it divided up evenly, believe it or not. It worked perfectly, from the marking to the last stitch, and it’s perfectly flat without a bubble or ruffle in sight. I couldn’t stop smiling while I was quilting it, because I could just tell it was going to look soooo cool!

*sigh* This is how quilting should be all the time…mmmmmm. Feeds the creative spirit, it does.

Share This