Today's Recount

Nick walked into my sewing room a few minutes ago, took a look around (I expanded my doodle wall a bit) and said "You're so OCD, I love it."  I was confused, but then realized he meant ADD.  That I can't argue with.  Here's the day's rundown: 

Mai's quilt, a quick update.  I did a total of 5 blocks today, and that was enough to mull on.  I'm not sure where I'm going with it, but I have high hopes.  We'll see. 

Soaking the squares for Alishia's quilt so I could take the paper off.  This was the bulk of the day, and it took FOREVER to get done.  My fingers were pruney, but...

Eventually it started coming together. 

A quick close up of Mai's squares, rearranged a bit. 

Some of the paper I took off of Alishia's blocks. 

Taadaa!  All the blocks I have done for Alishia's quilt so far. 

So then, I decided I wanted to work on something with less geometric responsibility.  I started Mom's Paddington quilt.  I'm using the jelly roll I got from eBay for the squares.  I've gotten more done than this, but I don't feel like going back into the abyss for pictures.  

And finally, my two favorite boys, in eerily similar positions. I love these boys.  One of them needs some teeth pulled though...unfortunately, not the human one.  :-(  

Anyways, I hope everyone had a great weekend!  

Because I didn't think I had enough to do...

...I just emailed Margaret's Hope Chest to "claim" Emily, whose birthday is on the 16th of May.  It just so happens that a couple of the fabrics I bought on Monday have princesses and castles on them, and I think I have a couple more patterns of similar girliness in my stash.  No idea what pattern I'll do, but I've got some long meetings tomorrow to daydream.  :-P 

new project!

of course as soon as I'm leaving, a new kit comes in! this is for quilts for kids...now I have 2 weeks to scheme about how to quilt this one.

Levi n Linus - Ready to Ship!

Phew, what a week!  I can't believe it's only the 15th day of this year and I've already gotten 2 baby quilts done and one to a point of "all I need is a few hours in front of the TV to finish this".  I'm so hoping to get all three done and shipped before I leave tomorrow morning...I wish it were socially acceptable to bring quilts to bind, to meetings that you're not presenting at anyways.  I'm pretty sure that's not a good idea though.  Sigh.

In any case, here's the picture I'm going to send with Levi's quilt, to Hannah:

I'm going to get boxes for both quilts (and the pink one, which isn't quite finished yet) so I can ship them out on the way to the airport tomorrow morning.

Here's Nick, modeling the I Spy quilt for me:

I spent my morning in a training seminar that didn't at all apply to me (literally...it was for a whole other set of products, separate entirely from the ones I document), so my mind drifted just a tad:

I was daydreaming about the quilt I'm going to make for my mom to give away. I'm hoping to get this panel (or something similar) for the center, and use 9-square blocks to surround it.  I might do another small border around that, but maybe not.  I'm going to quilt around the outline of the bear (basically all the black lines in the picture, minus the eyes and nose, etc), then quilt along the seams of the blocks (I haven't decided if I'll do each and every square or just around the blocks themselves...I might even just do diagonal lines across the whole thing).  I'll put the binding on, but leave the last part (hand stitching it down) for her to do so she can own a part of it.  Then I'll send it to her (likely for Mothers' Day) with the idea that she needs to take it as a donation someplace...she was thinking about starting up a donation center at my dad's hospital (Seton in Austin), so maybe this can be the first donation to that.  I'll post details for that group if/when she starts it. 

In any case...I have 22.5 hours until I'm on the plane to New Zealand.  I'm mostly packed, but need to find books to bring...it's a LOOOOOONNNGGGG flight down there from here, so I'm not sure one (even a thick one like Cryptonomicon) will suffice.  Any suggestions? 

Small Grumblings

So I played cards with a coworker at lunch today.  It was the second time I'd ever played, with the number of hands played still in the single digits.  Who could have guessed that I'd make a strategical error with numbers like that, huh?  (*rolling my eyes here*)  I always forget, the number one rule of Nerd Club is you do not screw up at Nerd Club.  (Number 2 rule YOU DO NOT SCREW UP AT NERD CLUB!!)  For those of you who don't know me personally, I'm a technical writer at a very very very (very) nerdy software company.  How nerdy?  We sponsor the Museum of Science.  That's how nerdy.  It's a great gig (for the most part), and I enjoy the work, but on occasion, the nerdiness gets to be a little much (which, if you know me personally, you're probably laughing at coming from me).  Some days, the word "algorithm" comes up a few too many times in casual conversation.  And when I say "casual conversation", I mean "what did you do this weekend, oh you had a date, how was it, I can plot the trajectory of this relationship" kind of casual conversation.  Yup, that's my life. 

What's great though, is that quilting (and sewing in general) gives me this sort of nerd release valve.  I won't pretend that I can do the geometric analysis of every block, but you know what?  There are doodles of triangles on my whiteboard at home...the one in my sewing room (incidentally, the one that fell and scared the bajeebers out of my poor kitty this weekend).  I'm finding that there is something so...healing...about putting on a movie I've seen a million times, warming up the space heater, and sitting down to do some good for someone I'll never meet. 

In college, I used to do a lot of volunteer work.  I used to identify with people, and I used to feel connected to the world.  Somewhere in my senior year, I lost that...maybe it was a bad breakup, maybe it was school kicking my butt, maybe it was something else entirely.  I don't know.  What I do know though, is that for nearly 4 years now, I've felt a sort of emptiness that wasn't there before.  I've been to church and I've done some volunteering, but everything just seemed like a square peg. 

Somehow...maybe it's because of the link between my mom, quilting, and spirituality...
...maybe it's because I can send my love for other people forward to them, without the possibility of rejection or hurt in return...
...maybe it's because of something much deeper that I haven't figured out yet...
...somehow, I've managed to start finding peace again, through quilting.  Maybe that's why I'm so hooked on buying fabric and supplies...it's not the shopping that gets to me, it's the "seeing beyond" if you will...when I run my hand along a light blue flannel print, I can see a little boy wrapped up in it, standing outside in flashing lights.  It's a horrible situation for him, but in a strange way I feel like that flannel connects me to him, and makes it so I can give him comfort, without ever even meeting him.  Is that strange? 

I've been obsessively finding quilting bloggers over the past few days.  I think I've added something like 60 or so blogs to my Google Reader thingy.  So far, I haven't found anyone in a similar situation to me (mid-20s, single, etc), but I don't feel alone.  So many quilters out there (mostly women) are such good people, and I love that! 

Friends at work laugh that I've become so "domesticated" lately (see my cooking blog for proof!) but don't at all see the draw to this...even my boyfriend (Nick) just nods and smiles most of the time (except when he knows he needs to be excited about something I've just finished...he's good like that lol).  I dunno...I guess it's nice to find a community of people who enjoy doing things for the love of doing them.  There aren't very many ulterior motives to quilting, really.  It's possibly the most innocent hobby ever (except maybe in the old days, when they used it to communicate...which I think is so badass). 

I dunno.  I'm rambling. 

Oh!  One more thing, then I'll knock it off, promise!  I just got my first ever request for a commissioned quilt!  My friend saw the I Spy quilt I made (I showed him pictures on the decoy blog lol) and just went nuts over it.  He has a toddler son who's just getting to the age that he understands stuff like that, so he's SUPER excited to have something to "light up his face" as he put it.  :-)  I think I'll designate the pink blanket to be the donation match for Arman's I Spy. 

Picture Update

Finally, some pictures!  

The weekend's spoils:

This took less time than you'd think to iron and fold.  It's also bigger than it looks in the picture...this heap filled my hamper to the top and then some.  :-)

Now, the I Spy quilt for SAPD c/o Project Linus.

Starting the I Spy quilt:

More I Spy:

More I Spy:

 

The kitty spies (don't worry, I'll be washing this before I send it in...incidentally, if anyone has recommendations for what laundry detergent works best on pet allergens, I'm all ears):

 

The front done:

 I am TOTALLY in love with the blue stuff I used between blocks...it's a batik from the remnants bin.  God, I love the remnants bin!  :-D

With batting and backing:

 The backing is a blue flannel with tugboats and lighthouses.  <3

Also for SAPD, here's the fleece rag blanket:

 The top three rows are sewn together.  The bottom 5 aren't yet. The pink edging is the same stuff I used for my mom's quilt.  :-)

After a 3-day binge of daily Joann's visits (three different stores I might add), my closet looks like this:

And, last but certainly not least, I got these strips in the mail today!  They're different Paddington Bear patterns.  This is about to be one of my favorite projects.  My mom is moving to Austin soon, after living in San Antonio for nearly a decade.  That might not sound like a lot of time to some of you, but we're a military family...this is the first place she's been for more than 4 years since before I was born.  Austin is only a couple of hours away from San Antonio, but it's far enough that she'll be making a whole new life for herself there (with my dad, of course).  My mom, as you can imagine from the description of this blog, is a truly amazing woman...her current concern with moving (aside from getting stuff to point B from point A) is finding a place to devote her time and compassion.  (That's right, she's really that amazing!)  So to help her out a little, I'm going to make a smallish quilt from these strips and give it to her to donate to someplace, so she can use it as a sort of ice-breaker. I haven't decided on a design yet, so I'm open to suggestions.  :-)  Also, in case you're curious, she reads my other "decoy" blog, so I can post this here and she won't know.  :-) 

So that's the wrap up for now. I'm taking a break from doing the binding on the I Spy quilt. I'm about halfway done...this is only the second binding I've done by hand (I did my mom's all by machine...epic fail), and already I feel way more comfortable about it.  I'm hoping I can get it done tonight so I can have something to show tomorrow night (maybe) at my first ever Quilters' Guild meeting...I won't be able to be a member, since membership is limited to 50 and this particular one is already full, but I really want to go make friends. 

Oh!  Speaking of friends, I totally gave advice at Joann's today!  This girl was asking about batting, and she was making her first quilt.  I was so excited for her (she was about my age), I wanted to hug her and tell her to come be my friend lol. 

And on that note, I'm off to finish this binding.  Night all!

Perfect Timing!

I checked my mail today, and lo and behold, I had not one but two packages!  The first one was 48 blocks of fleece in baby colors.  Cool.  The second one though was my 100 I Spy squares!  And perfectly timed, too!  Today, I'm going to take a break from doing Alishia's quilt and work on a quilt for the SAPD (San Antonio) via Project Linus.  A friend of mine in SA notified the world that SAPD is desperately low on comfort quilts (they have 10 left) and really needs some ASAP.  I'm going to throw together an I Spy quilt today, and see if I can make another one (both 36x45ish, in case anyone's curious) sometime this week.  If you're reading this and are interested in donating something pretty immediately, they need everything from baby to full-sized.  Instead of sending donations to Project Linus, please ask for the address of my friend (I won't post it here, and I'll ask her first before giving it to anyone I don't know directly) so she can help expedite the donation.  They'll alert Project Linus that they've received a donation c/o PL, for tracking purposes.  The I Spy quilt will be the one I'll donate in Levi's name.  Pictures to follow!

The Next Big Thing

So I have a few projects in the back of my mind...some of them I can post about, but some of them are my secrets until the person receiving them gets them.

For now, here's an idea of what I'll be up to in the coming months:

• This is such a great idea!  I'm going to make a few of these to keep in Helen (Nick and my van, for those of you who don't know).  I've got a whole lot of scraps lying around that I could use for straps.  Also, I love that this is a simple, cheap quilt to make for the next projects. 
• On that note, http://crafthope.com/ is my new favorite site for inspiration. It's not a big one yet, but it's definitely a project I'm going to keep up with.  
• Crafthope lead me to this site.  This girl is so adorable with her big ol' grin that it makes me want to find a shelter in my area that I can donate to.  I think I want to see if this place is someplace to donate to.  
• Here is another site I'm going to keep track of.  
• Jackpot!  Apparently someone wrote a book about this stuff...who knew. 

I like the idea of this site as well. Except that I want to make it my personal goal to make and give away 100 quilts before I'm 50. That's roughly 24 years to finish it...4ish quilts to give away a year.  Let me think about this one further...hm.

In any case, I've got some projects to work on.  Including my first baby blanket!  (This one's for a friend though, so it doesn't count for the give away challenge.)

Let me introduce myself...

I'm starting this blog fresh to track volunteer work that's sort of spawned from projects documented in this blog.  The short story on that blog is that my mom is an amazing person, and I made her a quilt for Christmas 2009.  The rather unexpected side effect of this endeavor though, was what's quickly becoming an insatiable desire to continue quilting.