Friday, November 25, 2022

WIP Wednesday: the one with Christmas gift plans

One more scrappy quilt top down! How many dozen to go???
Mid-November pics

This is definitely going to be the year of the Growth Group Quilts. I've known the people in my growth group(s) at church for 3-4 years now (7-8 in my original group), and they should have quilts. I'm tempted to just make a bunch, bring a pile to a group gathering, and get to pick the one they like the most....

In the meantime...need moar backings! I'm going to start sewing together chunks of collections that I have which aren't really useful anymore. Also, cotton homespun interspersed with patterned stuff. It's not great, but it's solid.

I sent four quilts off to be longarmed with a local quilter, and will hopefully manage a couple more in the next weeks.

I'd like to make a stuffed pouffle - possibly for giving away? I have some denim, and I think I'm going to use that. 

Need to make 'handles' for a laundry bag (or a better laundry bag); actually, we need several more 'bra bags' that we can toss in the wash.

have backings for four more quilts (green spares, two quilts for Lin nephlets, one quilt for Kinsley)

make 3 more old maid's puzzle quilt blocks to add to the 3x3 one - using 'older style' fabrics

Christmas party plans?
- 1 slip dress in a beige colour, suitable for going underneath overlay dresses?
- something for a "hoedown"

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

WIP Wednesday: the one with Things To Do

Works In Progress
- postage stamp
- plaidish
- cousin quilt

Daily: Sew one block of something (postage stamp, if nothing else), sew 1 seam of paper-piecing

Weekend (Saturday and/or Sunday): sew four blocks together
- make a backing for a quilt top

Weekly: WIP Wednesday post from now until Christmas

Thinking Forward: design for Quilt Show 2023
I'm absolutely blank on this one right now. They want the quilt finished by entry time - but for the binding. I don't know if it's trying to kick incidental/casual quilters out of the show, or to prioritise/preference non-modern stuff (because modern designs and patterns are more likely to be utilised by younger women who are short on time), or if they really have that many dropouts each year.

I have dropped out of the Quilt Show once. And that was the year I tore a calf ligament two weeks before and my cunning plan to self-quilt Swarm ended up on the couch along with me.

Actually, that's an idea - Swarm II, seeing as I gave away Swarm to a couple who I'm not sure are talking to me anymore after 2016, 2020, and now the 2022 mid-terms.

WIP Wednesday may

Quilting ladies don't like to get political for the most part - the thing about being Largely White Ladies means you can ignore politics for the most part, or trust that the White Men will protect you (so long as you fit into their norm of what White Ladies Should Be Like). Being able to ignore politics is something that many others can't do, because the shift and sway of politics affects them, even when the actual policies don't.

For instance, you might have denigrated "the Chinese (government)" for COVID-19. After all, China is a long way off, and 'the Chinese' are a big body of people that you don't usually see or having to interact with, and even so it's mostly people like myself who are culturally integrated.

Unfortunately for people like me, we might very well be culturally integrated, but the way certain people will treat us face to face is as though we're not. And it's no good to say, "well, they're just bad people" because 'they're just bad people' does not eliminate the bruises, the physical injuries, the trembling shock of being openly abused on the street, or the feeling that you'll never be safe again among white people whose smiles disguise their dislike.

By the way, black and brown quilters - whatever their background - have had to live with this treatment for, oh, as long as White America has been ignoring that their society was not only built on the back of black slavery, and by the enforced efforts of black slaves, but that it created a socially stratified (as well as segregated) society.

I digress, but I feel like it's needed. Sure, there aren't too many people reading this, and after 2016 and 2020, I'm fairly sure y'all know where I land on the political spectrum, and most of you haven't gone running away yet...

Anyway. Swarm II. That's the plan. It's going to be messy AF, though. So many small pieces. But maybe it's also time to work up a pattern...

Thursday, November 10, 2022

WIP Wednesday: the race to the end of the year

So many things to do.

I'll likely be losing the space in my workroom for a month over summer - January or February - since we're replacing all the windows in the house, and that's going to be something of a mess for a while.

At this point, I need to make some decisions about what I'm going to do in the coming months.
- finish all the quilts that I've already done
- get all the quilt tops/backings that I've completed actually quilted
- finish the clothing that I've started

Somewhere in there, I need to complete a frocktails outfit by the 12th November. Or just wear something I've already made.

At this point, it's look like "wear something I've already made."