Evening and Morning, the Second Day

Sunday is a work day for me, and I'm usually pretty tired by the time I get home. I have to drive about an hour to get to my church, so it's usually around 2:00 by the time I have lunch with the folks and drive home. That means not a lot gets done that involves getting out of the easy chair. But I did go down to the studio late in the afternoon and get a little bit done.

Since this quilt was on the cutting table, I decided it was the easiest to move forward - and it has a deadline since the baby is due the end of this month. It's a very simple quilt - just half-square triangles, but keeping the colors straight means I have to use a couple of brain cells once in a while. I had some blocks sewn but not squared up, so I started with that, and that helped remind me what my notes meant. Then I cut some pieces and got another set of blocks into the machine. Since it had been a while since I had used the machine, that meant winding bobbins, cleaning out lint, and all that good maintenance stuff. By the time the blocks were sewn I was tired, so I quit before I did damage with the rotary cutter.


This morning I got out this Grandmother's Flower Garden that has been languishing for the past 20 years, waiting for me to get inspired to sew the blocks together. For years this was a travel project because it was easy to hand piece in the car. But once the blocks were done, and a layout established, it got put away until my life settled down a little. Then I rediscovered knitting and hand-piecing no longer had a place in my life. But now I need hand projects that don't involve yarn, so out it came. By the time I went to the studio this afternoon I had the whole first column put together. From here it will take more time to add each block, because there is more sewing to attach them to each other and to the first column. But I may actually finish this puppy some day. Hand-quilted, of course. So maybe in the 2020's.

The other hand work that I can do from the easy chair is tatting. The last time I had a booth at Christmas Marketplace I sold every tatted cross I had, so I'm starting with those. White seems to be the preferred color, since that's what everyone's grandmother used, but I have a lot of white tatting cotton, so that was an easy choice. It's slow going right now because I'm remembering how it works, and my fingers have to get toughened up where I wrap the thread around my hand, but it will get better. And it's a great craft for summer when it's too hot to sit under a big heavy project.

I feel the need to add one more kind of project. Something a little more artistic, but still not involving yarn. I think embroidery of some sort, but I don't know what yet. I'll have to explore that over the next few days. I know I have unfinished counted cross-stitch somewhere; maybe that will fill the gap. And maybe I'll just invent something new. Who knows.