Friday, June 10, 2011

sewing with a purpose

Conference paper: done.
Article revisions: nearly done.
Book intro: fully revised.
Critical piece on "genre": underway.

I have been making progress on work, and that calls for a little sewing...yes indeed.  And nothing motivates me to complete projects like the desire to give a gift.

A few days ago I had figured that my green-grey-pop of orange "Links" quilt top would be stashed away, completed at some point in the distant future.  But lo and behold, we received a skype call from our good friends W and L that very night, and while we were catching up with them they mentioned that L is going to have surgery in 2 weeks.

W and L are the sweet, funny, smart friends -- and they also tend to downplay the seriousness of events in their lives.  Everything should go just fine for L, but she will need some quiet recovery time...and what better comfort than a quilt?  Add to that the fact that they just bought their first house and painted their living room a soft green and white...brainstorm!  "Links" will be theirs, and now it's back in rotation, ready to be basted and quilted and gifted.  Yay!

Another gift is brewing, this one for my mother -- and it began as a stack of 2 1/2" strips of Moda "Frolic" (cut from a Moda scrap bag purchased at Fabric Depot in Portland last February) plus some sunny solids:


And currently at this state of development:



The design is based on "Sunny Trails" by Corey Yoder, aka Little Miss Shabby.  Of course, I had to make things much trickier for myself by making 9-patch blocks rather than 16-patch blocks (I already had 2 1/2" strips cut, yadayadayada) -- which messed up Corey's whole block design and meant I had to devise an alternate assembly plan.

Blah blah blah.

It really wasn't too hard in the end, not at all, but it wasn't mindless recipe following, either!  Maybe I'll include details in a later post on this quilt -- which is not yet fully pieced (I'm going to make a scrappy border, but am waiting for some Frolic yardage to arrive).

I hope you like it, Mama!

What motivates all of you?  Is it an idea, a shared project like a quilt-along, the recipient?  I'd love to know!

4 comments:

Maxine Schacker said...

What a lucky mama! Thank you sweet girl. It really will be a comfort and is so-o-o sunny! And I'm happy all your work is going so well.

Tong said...

i love that new quilt top! i don't know how you do it, to get so much done in so little time! an idea can usually motivate me so much (i'm not the greatest finisher), but nothing motivates quite like a looming deadline =P looking forward to your finished quilts!

Still a Brooklyn Kid said...

It's gonna be beautiful! Brooklyn Girl deserves it!

Kim Brackett said...

I love your Sunny Trails quilt, and really like the way you substituted the nine-patch blocks. Great colors, too.

I'm motivated by everything you mentioned, but I get really excited about getting the quilt basted and ready to machine quilt. And hand-stitching the binding is my favorite part -- it really begins to feel like a quilt then.