Thursday, May 26, 2011

Let's call it "shabby chic"

I'm exhausted.  Totally and utterly exhausted.  I won't trouble anyone in my teeny, tiny blog readership with details, but the upshot -- sewing-wise -- is that my recent bits of stitching are far from perfect.

I'm okay with imperfection.  In my current state I simply can't fret about small things like imperfect seams!  In fact, having even a little time for sewing feels like a beautiful, precious luxury.

Here's what I made in the past few days.

First up is block #2 in Sheila/Blue Patch Quilter's Mystery Quilt-along: "starry path," a beautiful paper-pieced block.  This is my version, in all its outrageous and imperfect glory:


Starry joins the big star block from week 1; I like to think of them as two outrageously dressed but relatively down-to-earth sisters, women you would want to spend time with even if their outfits sometimes made your head spin.


I also made a couple of test blocks for Thea's Garden -- a little quilt I'm going to make for a toddler I've never met, daughter of a sweet and generous young woman. 



This one is going to be a festival of pink and purple "flowers" on a pale yellow background.  I love the look of the elephant fabric, to the left (fabric designed by my bee-buddy Paula Ozier), especially next to the Innocent Crush block, to the right.

Hmmmm.  I think that's all I have in me right now.  But I sure would love some comments (cue tumbleweeds...), so if anyone feels chatty or has similar experiences of trying to be creative against the odds, please feel free to chime in!

Ciao.

4 comments:

Still a Brooklyn Kid said...

You're the best.

Jodi Ingram said...

My sewing is quite often very imperfect as well. But I recently taught an old Sunday-school teacher of mine how to quilt, and she was stressing about the little details as well. I told her not to worry, and after the quilt was totally finished and washed and nice and shrunk, she even said "Wow. You can't see the mistakes at all".

And I've found it almost always to be true. You won't notice when its washed and crinkled and lovely. Also, I am a regular reader (in Google reader), though I don't show up in your blogger. Sorry about that. I'd rather read in google. But know you've got at least one person (who's not your mom) who reads every time you write! Keep it up!

Tong said...

LOL! I love your analogy of the 2 mystery quilt along blocks, that made me laugh out loud! I think they look great and I'm not just saying it!

Prof. S (the enchanted bobbin) said...

Thank you so much for the comments -- sweet, generous, and much appreciated :)