Monday, May 17, 2010

Mindless procrastination

I have been having a quilting block. Not a slump mind you, just "I don't know what I want to do" block. I've got the Feathered Star to work on. I've made a couple wall quilts and tapestries for friends lately. But I haven't been doing any sewing machine sewing on a large quilt recently.

For one thing, I have a very large Orange and Cherry Jubilee that has sat on the shelf for over a year. Remember that one? That was the one where I messed up on the block placement and I became disgusted with myself. And there is the problem of quilting such a large quilt. (I couldn't even lay it out flat to take a picture. The room is too small.) There are NO long arm quilters in Japan. This means I have to do it myself. Elaine has been machine quilting large quilts on her domestic machine but she says her machine has a 9 inch throat. I measured mine... Mine has a 7 inch throat. Even with little quilts I will almost always get a pucker in there and so I shudder to think what would happen with a large quilt. But with the Feather still on the quilting hoop, I'm not too anxious to hand quilt the Orange and Cherry Jubilee. (Another two years of quilting?)

So why would I want to start ANOTHER large quilt that wouldn't be able to get quilted? And even if I did start, what do I want to make?

On Saturday I went up to the sewing room for fabric therapy. What IS all this stuff coming out of the drawers and baskets? The crumb basket is overflowing and most of that stuff is unusable! But can I really just toss it? No. So I spent HOURS cutting the crumbs into 3 1/2 inch strips and squares, 2 1/2 inch strips and squares and 2 inch strips and squares. This is called mindless procrastination. I made a DENT.

Why do I keep cutting up strips and squares? I fell in love with Bonnie's Scrap User system but I seem to be SAVING, not USING! So yesterday I started chain stitching and making 16 patches. I think I've started a Patch and Pinwheel quilt and it will eventually have to take its place in the quilting line. Any quilting advice?

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