Getting Started

Today I started quilting my Christmas quilt. I'm following the design on the panels and then doing a swirly sort of pattern in the "logs" around the panel. So far, I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome. Some of my swirlys are "interesting", and the biggest problem is working in the 3 inch space. It's not like doing an allover pattern which might be easier.

I have been avidly studying quilting patterns everywhere, shop samples, magazines, blog galleries. It's funny, though. I sit down at the machine and I can't think of a single pattern to quilt with. It's "quilter's block". Punny, I know. Leah Day, my quilting guru, keeps a notebook with drawn patterns and samples together. That sounds like a good idea, but it'll take me a year to get it together. Maybe that should be my "Pretty-close-to-the-New-Year resolution" for this year.

So, obviously, all this talk about quilting patterns and projects would be better supported with beautiful pictures, I know. I'll try to get something together tomorrow.

It's nice to have finally started a project. It's the beginning of a new phase in my quilting life.

Is it that time already?

I seem to be "borrowing" my husband's works lately. This is a photo manipulation called "Lake" but it just suggested warm happy colors to me today.

I have a confession to make. I'm not ready for Christmas. I hear songs on the radio and I can't believe the Christmas season is already upon us. It's overwhelming to me when I think of all the things I want to do.

We don't have big families and they're kind of spread out around the country. Our jobs don't allow us to get away for the holidays, so we usually have to find other times for catching up with family. Nine years ago, when my youngest was only 6 months old, my husband's parents took the whole family to St. Lucia in the Caribbean. All 16 of us! It was truly the most wonderful Christmas and one of my favorite times. Another time we all went to Grandpa's house in Arizona. I really enjoyed the cacti decorated with lights and Santa hats.

Our family traditions include decorating with lights in the yard, more than on the house. I love seeing a blue bush there, a red tree there, all along the driveway. And the big wreath on the house. It's six feet in diameter and looks great from the road.

Last weekend, I made candy with my friend Martha. We did this last year for the first time and discovered that there are some candies which are so amazingly good that they are worth the work. My favorite is the caramels. Which is pronounced "care-a-mels" according to my husband. This year, I made a batch that I think got cooked a little too long and the caramels were so hard you couldn't even cut them. Depressing. The second batch came out perfectly. I didn't test my thermometer before cooking, so I'm partly to blame. We also made marshmallows; well, Martha did while I wrapped about 300 pieces of caramel in wax paper. My peanut brittle came out just perfect. I believe in peanut brittle at Christmas. It is just so yummy! I need to make some maple fudge, too.

I can't think of a single thing I need for Christmas. Well, maybe one of those plastic sheets to put under a quilt when you're doing free motion to help it move around more easily. Leah Day sells them on her website, I think. I'm a big fan of Leah's. She really inspires a lot of people. I would also enjoy a good massage.

Every year, we get felt stockings at WalMart and the kids decorate them with glitter glue. The kids love it. It's one of the things my husband likes to do. The kids are already upset that I have to work on Christmas. Somebody has to do it. Maybe I can come up with something fun for them to do while I'm at work.

I'm seeing all kinds of neat ideas for Advent calendars. I like the one with toilet paper tubes at maya*made's blog. Very clever.

I think I'm through with my rambling post. I know I can catch a little Christmas spirit if I put my mind to it. That'll be my project for this week.

Recuperating

It's another weekend of football with the kids and catching up on sleep. We are all in various stages of head colds, so not a lot of energy. Adam has a project to complete for his Native American project at school which will involve sewing a rabbit pelt we bought recently into a pouch. I hope it goes smoothly.

I still haven't got a camera and my recent paltry efforts together for a photo shoot. Maybe that will happen this week. But I've been strolling through the Blogger's Quilt Show and studying quilting techniques I've found there. It's reassuring to see some of the same ideas I'm using in my filler sampler that I'm working on. Eventually the panel I'm making will be made into a backpack. I'm learning about the importance of space to give the batting room to breathe. My favorite filler is a feathered vine that I FMQ'd, similar to Leah's Fern and Stem.

I cam across a recipe for a One Bowl Apple Cake that I will make today and report on. It looks fantastic and just what I was looking for. Maybe I'll make one for work, too.

I have to escape to my sewing room while I can to do something before everyone is up and about. Not an exciting post, but something at least.

I don't know what people use their blog for, but for me a blog is a place for me to keep track of what was happening in my creative space that day. Finding time to actually do the creative things I want to do is very, very difficult for me, and then when I get there, I'm too tired to think about what I want to do.

Primarily, I am a quilter, though I don't have that many finished quilts to show for it. But I compose quilts and quilt projects in my head all the time. I am inspired by passion in others. I was drawn to this blog space because of Leah Day's 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting blog. I want to do FMQ to finish all those tops I have laying around. Her site is inspirational and makes it all look so accessible. It is genius.

In my musing about genius, I have been thinking about Julia Child. I read the book "Julie and Julia" by Julie Powell about her quest to cook all the recipes from Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," then I saw the movie made from the book. Julie Powell was disappointed that Julia Child was not a fan, but it's no surprise. Because of the huge scope of her project, Julie never set out to cook the recipes well, she just had to do each of them once. I am now reading Julia's autobiographical (with Alex Prud'homme) "My Life in France." Julie's attitude toward cooking would never evoke a positive response from Julia. Julia had such a joyful, ebullient view of the world and she was driven not only to do something, but to do it until she had mastered it. This is one reason Julia was so well liked by the French people she came to know in France. She loved the way that the French did not put the emphasis on productivity in terms of numbers, but preferred the approach of the artisan, whether it be in the making of cheese or wine, or a simple and elegant meal.

I love Julia's joy for life. I love how it showed in her cooking, her art. And it was never just about doing it, but doing it well.