To start off this morning with something totally off the subject, I like new yellow No. 2 pencils, freshly sharpened. They seem to collect around my keyboard. I know I
could have a cute mug filled with them, but they would probably still be in various places on my desk. We have been
making friends with bartenders collecting various wine and liquor bottles over the last year and Mark then slumps them into cool shapes that are great for entertaining--you know, wine and cheese parties. You can use them for crackers, olives, etc. College guys like Corona beer bottles to throw their spare change in. Anyway, someone gave us a Frexinet champagne bottle. Those bottles have a matte finish, but after Mark fired it, it came out nice and glossy. Voila! My pencils have a classy place to reside on my desk now.
Okay. Moving on to something more WIP-ish.
I joined the
Single Girl quilt-along and have struggled over what fabric to use. And being so flaky, every time I see someone else's selection, I think, "That's it. That's what I want to do." The quilt on the pattern cover is made from Katie Jump Rope. So I was going to do that, because I have collected quite a bit of it over the last year. And then someone decided they would use Katie Jump Rope mixed with Flea Market Fancy. Hey, that sounds like a good idea. Then I decided maybe I would make a Christmas quilt because I have a lot of cool contemporary Christmas fabric. Then I saw that
Corey was using all solids. And I loved
that idea. And then I saw that several people on Flickr are not matching all their rings, making a ring or two or three of a different color.
Genius.
Okay, folks. This is my final decision. I'm sticking with Katie Jump Rope.
Then I started pulling out coordinating solids (sorry for the lousy picture--the lighting was terrible in the late afternoon) and I think I'll make three rings of only solid fabric. It's my compromise of all the things that appealed to me: Katie Jump Rope, solids, and a couple of rings that were different from the others.
I'm making progress on my spool quilt. Good thing, too, because I leave for the quilting retreat a week from tomorrow! I machine quilted around all the brown spool parts, and I'm doing big stitch around the sides of each spool. I had read Kate Conklin's
big stitch tutorial and liked the idea that she was trying to make the stitch on the front and the stitch on the back of the quilt relatively the same size. I tried that and it totally felt awkward for me. Do you think hand quilting is kind of like your signature, individual and unique?
