I have a lot of changes going on in the background. Exciting things are just ahead.

First off, my first book, Crazy Curves, is now available as a downloadable PDF. Yippee!

I get a lot of requests for this book.

If you don’t have a copy, now is our chance. I have it listed for an introductory price of $17.95.

Go to the store page and get your copy.

Stay tuned, much more to come!

Elisa

Color Bridge Quilt Pattern

I found my pattern Color Bridge in the following blog at Sister’s Choice Quilts, she is calling it Christmas Cactus. Very nice.

You can read about it and see her quilt in her Dec 3rd and Dec 7th entry.
I would have to say that Nicole is a prolific quilter. She has a lot of amazing quilts. And a lot of Christmas quilts. And her house looks so nice.

After looking through her posts and reading the stories about her Christmas quilts, I thought I would count up my Christmas quilts.

It didn’t take me long to count them.
I was disappointed to realize that I have zero Christmas decorations up. And therefore, zero Christmas quilts up. And I own very few Christmas quilts. Then I remembered that I have this tree quilt and I hung it up.

This was made this about 8 years ago with the Square in A Square ruler. The strange angle of the quilt is because it is hanging in a hallway and I couldn’t get a good shot at it. I do not have much wall space in my house. Most of my walls are windows.

Then I found this table runner, Christmas Poinsettia, that I bought at an auction in Arizona in 2002. Made by Julinne Dodds for the MTQ Small quilt auction in Prescott. I love this quilt. Julinne, if you are ever wondering who bought your quilt, it was me.

And then the last one is a table runner made from my In A Spin pattern. This was probably made in about 2002 also.

That is it. Boy that is a poor showing for the season. I will have to get busy for next year so that I have at least one larger quilt for the season.

But right now, my excuse for not having done any preparations for Christmas is that my house is torn apart. Literally.
One corner of the room looks like this…

The wood stove is actually downstairs and this is the pipe coming up through the floor, awaiting the return of the installer to finish his part in installing our wood stove and then we have to add the drywall to box it in, and paint it and then clean it all up and put the furniture back into place. And all before our company arrives in 7 days and 6 hours. But who is counting….

I love to hike.
I see a big hill and I just have to see what is on the other side.

I start climbing up only to find out that what I was looking at was not really the “top” but I now see another horizon that I must reach to be able to see over to the other side.

It is a trick. I get to the top of that huge knoll and again find out that I must go further up or give up and go back down. Now the hiking is getting tough. I am tired, my legs are weary and it seems like such a long ways to go to reach my goal.

No giving up! It now becomes a challenge that must be conquered. Give it some more grit and get on with it. Take one step at a time. One weary footstep after another. Baby steps it seems. But they all add up.

I enjoy some of the sights on the way. Do those flowers look like… well… they sort of look like… never mind.

Unknown Flowers

Finally… oh this is so worth it!

The top!

Making a quilt can be the same way.

You fall in love with the pattern. Excitedly you pick out just the right fabric. You arrange the fabric and look longingly at it, awaiting the time until dinner is cooked or you are off work so that you can begin with eagerness the project that you fell in love with.

Hours later, after cutting out a zillion pieces of fabric you begin to feel overwhelmed. This project seems much bigger than you had imagined. Of course, the pattern you chose was for a wall hanging and you decided that it needed to be made into a king size bed quilt. After some more frustration of putting a block together the wrong way and having to rip it out, you set the project aside.

If you do manage to get the blocks done you are now faced with sewing them together into a top, and then the border and then the quilting. It seems overwhelming!
You may even lose your enthusiasm for the project you put it away so that you can’t see it anymore and you move on to something else, something smaller and easier. How many of those projects do you have?

I have some tips for you that might help you finish that project before it joins the closet of UFO’s.

Tips:
If I have a project that must be done and I have no joy for it anymore I do some of the following; adjust as needed to fit your project.

First – complete one block or step so that you have an example to look at as far as sewing steps and color placement.

Then;
1. Set a time limit each day. Even 15 minutes is enough. Work on those blocks for 15 minutes. No more, but make sure it is every day.

2. Use those blocks as fillers on another project. For example when I am sewing my rows together for another quilt or working on a simple project, I chain piece one of the dreaded blocks at the end of each row so that I don’t have to cut the threads in-between blocks. Some people use a scrap piece of fabric so that can keep chain piecing but why not sew on of those extra blocks. You will be surprised at how many of those dreaded blocks get completed. You always have your completed block to look at so that you can remember how to place your fabrics.

3. Put in a movie. I like watch or listen to a favorite movie or even a book on tape to make the time go by while doing mindless work of chain piecing. I get some of my best “reading” done while sewing.

4. Set a number of blocks or steps to complete each day. Instead of looking at the entire project, set a goal of doing step 1 to all of the blocks. Or maybe completing only 5 blocks today or set your own goal.

I did this with this quilt pattern.

Bright Star Quilt

It has a lot of paper piecing blocks. One day I might sew two side pieces onto each block. I would do all of the blocks, but only that step. Then the next day, sew another piece onto each block. Having a completed block to look at kept me from forgetting what I was doing and making a mistake.

5. The idea is to break it down into steps and only do that step. Only one at a time. If you keep thinking about all of the steps to completion you may get overwhelmed and never even start. Do a step and then put it away before it begins to drag you down.

If I were able to see some of the trails before I start hiking I might never get started, but I only see a little bit and it keeps me going.

What ideas do you have for getting those projects that have turned into drudgery completed?

Were going down there?

Heading down…

Downhill all the way

Thanks everybody for the kind words and great comments.
Erin – I will give those plug-ins a try!

Ok, I am almost caught up from me week off at Thanksgiving and I have drawn names. It was very official. I wrote your signatures on a piece of paper and folded up each one and closed my eyes as I drew out one at a time.
Congratulations to the following, would you please email me with their snail mail addresses;
Sharrieboberry,
BarbL,
BarbR,
Asiyah, and
Erin.

I have a humble appearance in the Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks collector’s edition magazine.
To make my block I used some soft colors from Moda’s Basic Grey, Eva fabric collection. Block #71 would be my block.

It is not a difficult block but it uses a lot of little 2″ squares and HST’s. If you decide to make a large quilt using this block, you will be cutting little pieces of fabric for a very long time. I suppose that is what piecing a top is all about.

Many, many moons ago, my husband, who has since gotten smarter and does not say such things, was watching me cut out various fabrics for a quilt and he asked why I was cutting up all of that perfectly good fabric just to sew it back together again. He doesn’t say such things anymore.
I could ask him, why are you cutting up that perfectly good board just so you can nail it back together again. Why he might say? Well, because I am creating something else, something better, something usable like a house or a table or a bookshelf, would be his reply. Now he “gets” it.

I have some complimentary copies of this magazine that I would like to give away. I was thinking of requesting that you submit a comment and I could have drawing from the postings but I don’t get a lot of postings on this blog. Well, that is not true, I do get a LOT of postings but they are just not appropriate for decent eyes to read. The spam is cleverly disguised as a post but they put links in there for advertisements for unwanted items. I have had to turn off the comments section on a few of my posts because they seemed to draw a lot of the wrong kind of attention.

I could try it. If you really, really want a copy of the magazine just let me know by posting a G rated comment.
Or if you were thinking about placing an order on my website you can, again, just let me know in the comments section and I will include a copy in there. That is until I run out of my very limited copies.

Or go buy one at the newsstand. It is a very nice magazine and I know that you want one. You will want to see block #71. And block 72 and 73 and 74….

Until next time…