Cathedral Windows and Such Ramblings...

I have been swamped trying to juggle school drop offs/pickups, during-school schedules, after-school schedules, workouts, and quilting.

Pardon the short post, but wanted to let you in on the quilting work I'm focusing on right now. The Mother-in-Law's quilt....a Cathedral Stained Glass Quilt.

This is not to be confused with this:
http://sohappytosew.blogspot.com/2011/02/cathedral-window-quilt-tutorial-part-2.html (Although I have to admit that I have yet to do one of those, and plan to before I go to quilting heaven..)

I'm taking my focus from a window I can't place (I don't know where the window is, and I don't know the name of the cathedral, photographer of the photo, etc. ...I'm so sorry that I didn't grab all that.) I've got a picture I accidentally drew over in MSPaint that shows the whole window. This is the main part I'm focusing the quilt around.

While I'll admit, mine won't be quite as symetrical as it would be to be a replica, I have an intentional reason to not do so (I may choose to explain later, I may not). 

I had considered doing something to pull this window: 

Which is the South Rose Window of the Chartres Cathedral. While beautiful, it is currently far too intricate for my timeline of 4 months, and I can't really change the colors or themes to reflect the recipient's choices of reds and golds. 

Ok...off to get walking to pick up youngest school person, then off to pick up next one. Tomorrow, driving the oldest one off to college again. I promise I will eventually get back to this thing. (Today, I just got the 4 main pieces drawn and freezer-papered for templates to use later. Woot! Progress!!!)

Sleepy, but Inspired!

I've decided that not only am I utterly and completely exhausted, I'm hitting my third or fourth "wind" (yeah, I lost count, sorry).

I tried to go to sleep earlier, but that obviously didn't work too well. After "napping" for about 30 minutes, I gave up. My emotions from yesterday's arguments left me imagining future actions I or others might take. So I took my emotions back to the sewing room. I've got an "aisle" set up in my room. Basically, there's two aisles in my room, making my total workspace work in a U shape. The aisle where I computer and sew and such always stays cleared out (how else could I relieve stress if it didn't?). The other aisle doesn't always stay so neat. Aside from additional fabric, buttons, and other notions that came in the Christmas batch of "stuff" cleaned from my mom's, grandmother's, and aunt's houses. I had to be cautious with this batch of stuff since some of it came from a cat- and smoker-friendly house. I ended up tossing some much-needed zippers, trims, and tapes because they just couldn't have ever gotten clean. But I found more buttons! I added them to the other 5 lbs of buttons I have no clue how I'll ever use.

And keeping my inspiration going, I've started trimming a 45 degree angle on my strips for a project for Saturday. I've decided that instead of taking a stack of 22" long strips and having waste won't work for me (these all came from fat quarters). So I've got half of them trimmed for the bias seams to get them joined into really long strips. I'll have 6 very long strips to take with me on Saturday, and I plan to have them all wrapped on tubes to keep them nice and ready for the quilting!

I've got plans today to baste one quilt and start/possibly finish quilting two other quilts today. Ambitious, right? I've also got plans to upload another quilt to my Etsy shop. I may have to pull the Garden Flower Lap Quilt out and shoot some better photos of it so it will move out. Take a look at it and see if you want it! I under-priced it, but I want it gone, and I've got bills to pay.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/122908726/garden-flower-lap-quilt

Emotional Quilting

Do you quilt when you're emotional? I do. I also quilt when I'm not emotional. But that doesn't make me any less involved in my quilting.

After having a very heated and argumentative discussion (you'll learn I'm not one to get into arguments often), I've found that touching the fabrics I'm working with and refocusing my attention on the task at hand works really well to calm my nerves, melt the stress, and give me an overall sense of achievement. Since I rarely win arguments with humans (arguing with the dogs? I only occasionally give ground), I've learned that arguments with my fabrics work so much better. 

"No, not you yet." 
"Ahhh, THERE you are!"
"Come on, lay flat!"
"Sweet heavens, you look fabulous!"

Is it that the fabric doesn't argue back? I don't know. But aside from catching tears that have fallen, my quilts pick up the random dog hairs that collects under my chair. They also pick up the bits of sand occasionally that the dogs have brought in from the yard (discussion for another day entirely). They also pick up memories. I can remember the arguments that have no meaning now except as a reminder of pain by a simple picture of a completed quilt made during that argument. 

My quilts also pick up names and lives of their own. After making a painstakingly-tough backing for "Girl Swirl", I tackled the applique and backing for the 'flannel monstrosity' that I have yet to properly name. There's the "Beach-Tones Stitch Quilt" and the "Garden Flowers" quilts that bring back memories of sitting working through the decorative touches, the quilting, and the events in my life during those quilts. Some time this year, I want to start pulling all the pictures of my quilts up to my website, and then start pulling some of them over here to the blog. I want to review what each meant to me then, and what each means to me now. 

There's emotion between the layers and in each locking stitch, whipstitch, sashing cut, or curved seam. I quilt when I'm emotional, but my quilting is also emotional.