I'm leaving tomorrow to spend a week with my mother. She's 92, and still lives alone, although she shouldn't, so I try to visit often. My sister in the same town goes by at least once a day, but having someone else gives her a break, and helps get some big chores done. Mom needs some outings also, since she feels rather isolated sometimes. She used to make many quilts, most of which she still has (that's a story in itself). On this trip I think I'll try to photograph some of them, just to have a record, and they might be interesting to post.

A Small Show

Three photos from a guild exhibit held this weekend at the public library. It's not a big show with vendors, etc., just quilts hung around the central atrium and in halls. This works well, since we get quilters who come to see the show, as well as regular library patrons who are pleasantly surprised to see the quilt display. There is voting for viewers choice, which the voters seem to think more seriously about than who should be president! The first photo is my big scrap quilt, and the other two are two versions of the same English paper pieced pattern. Helen made the first as a graduation gift for her niece, who requested purple and black. This is as good as purple gets! Kay F. was inspired by Helen to dig out a 15-year-old UFO. It's a charm quilt with well over 1,000 different fabrics. The two make a great study in what role value plays in a quilt. Also, I find it interesting that, although Kay's has many more fabrics than Helen's, it doesn't look that way because so many of them are similar. I wonder if that's because at the time she made it fewer fabrics were available.

I finally have shaken myself into a bit of activity, and sewed together these circle blocks from my Australian fabrics. I cut and pieced these in April and then appliqued the circles while we were in Paris, but hadn't got around to the next step. One advantage of being so lethargic was that by having them on the design wall for a week I did improve the layout a bit, I think. I like this piece so far. It has a certain weirdness about it that seems to fit with the feeling of Australian Aboriginal designs.
The next step will be working out a border design. This will take a lot of auditioning, but I can go slow. In this case, probably a good idea.

The Blahs

Do I have the blahs! I have a binding to do, a label to sew on, the Australian blocks to sew together, new quilts that I could plan, and no interest in any of them. I painted four pieces of fabric (ugly), made a post card (equally ugly, and stupid too), baked a pie, (good!) so I'm not totally unproductive, just bored. I realized a while ago that this is the first day of school and in the old days I would not be sitting in the yard petting my cat, and I was very happy. Could I be subconsciously wishing to be back in the classroom. Nah-don't think so.

Thank goodness for blogs; although seeing what great stuff others are doing makes me feel even less productive. Still, it's a window on the world, and lighting MAY strike tomorrow and I'll develop some energy.

Does anyone else love these sweet potato vines that you see in ornamental plantings everywhere? Mine is on its third summer (I put it in my sunroom in winter) and is still going strong. That fluorescent green just gets better and better, especially when combined with the blue red flowers. I also love the purple foliage plant that is often combined with it. What a great color plan!

Here's the finished top for the Quilts of Valor project. I'm pleased with the way it turned out, except that there is one block turned the wrong way. Can you find it? I could fix it, but am feeling lazy; also, I think it's the kind of thing that doesn't show when something is in use, only when you see it displayed on a wall. The star points in the border are the same size as the ones in the sashes, but don't look it. Interesing optical illusion, isn't it?

On Quilt Studio the topic of what people are doing came up. Here I am, taking a break from anything original and doing straight, fairly brainless piecing. First a Christmas quilt for my sister. It's from Alex Anderson's book, Fabric Shopping with Alex Anderson. The blocks are finished, and then it will have a couple of narrow inner borders and a red pieced outer border. Then, I am working on a quilt for Quilts of Valor. My guild had a blue and white block exchange, and it ocurred to me that if I put them together with red I'd have a red, white, and blue quilt. Here they are framed with blue (hideous isn't it?), and auditioned with the red and white garden maze setting I'm going to use. I'm hoping this will work out in cloth as well as it did on my Quilt-Pro plan. This set is from one of Sharyn Craig's books, and the framing strips work so well, giving a perfectly straight even edge to put together, as well as jazzing up the look of the whole thing.

Thanks for everyone's comments about quilting magazines! It was good to hear other suggestions, like Belle Armoire and the virtual Crazy Quilting magazine. The range of opinion was interesting, but Quilting Arts and Quilter's Newsletter seem to come out on top, although sometimes just for reference, not serious reading and subscribing. I was particularly interested by the people who say they browse and don't buy. So this morning when I had a few minutes between errands, I browsed the magazines at the library and saw these that I thought were worth looking at. Maybe people already know them. Fiber Arts seems to be just what the title suggests, but more information than how-to; American Craft isn't just fabric of course, although there was an article about a fabric dyer; Art News has beautiful work, inspiring just for the colors, and then Bead and Button for all that beautiful work I never would or could do myself.