Tag Archives: quilt
DIY Flowers
Between a cold/flu thing and generally unpleasant weather this has been a make-your-own-flowers week for me. I made a quilt and tote bag that, if my calculations are correct, will attach to the handles of my grandmother’s wheelchair for her Christmas gift. Now I just need this cold to clear up.
“You pays your money and you takes your choice.”
The question posed is: Do you believe in fate or do you believe you can control your own destiny?
My answer is: It isn’t either/or.
My mother-in-law used to say “you pays your money and you takes your choice”. She had a way of saying it that emulated my idea of a man at a fair. You get the prize that goes with your choice. If you want a different prize then you pay more money to make a different choice.
Isn’t the real art of living to see what you can do with with what you have? Choice and fate together make a life. Like making a scrap quilt from fabrics that you have picked up here and there through the years.
…or choosing the softest, sweetest kitty-cat at the Humane Society on the day when you realized you were lonely and needed a companion.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Que Sera Sera.”
Quilt with Eyes
As can be seen, my Empress is still working very hard to help me finish the quilt. I set it down to check dinner last night and couldn’t pick it back up when I sat down again. Then I noticed that it had grown eyes!
Helping…in the Usual Way.
Her name is Empress. We should have chosen something else, then maybe she wouldn’t rule the roost.
A Quilt on the Table…Waiting for Shoes to Drop
I looked up the source of “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Wiki-something-or-other says that it comes from early industrial age tenements where the walls and floors were thin. You could hear your neighbors getting ready for bed and when you hear one shoe hit the floor you know another will soon.
It is used two ways:
- to defer action until another matter is finished or resolved
- to await a seemingly inevitable event, especially one that is not desirable.
Two shoes have dropped, on different sides of the bed. We have two crises pending in the family. Both are inevitable. The exact details of the crises are not clear, but sooner or later both situations will result in an unpleasant, stress-filled crisis (if we are lucky it will be one crisis each, but I am not optimistic). It is hard to live like that. Not wanting the crises, but knowing they are brewing and that the people who could make the situations better will not. I have no say in the matter but will, inevitably, be called on to pick up the pieces and try to put them back together.
The phone call or calls may come in the next few minutes or the next few months. Every time the phone rings I flinch, then stiffen my spine and answer.
What is wrong in this picture?
Enough pouting, how do I stay sane waiting? I find sewing therapeutic. I get to touch fabric, enjoy color and create something, it takes focus, but on something I enjoy…and I have some control over the outcome.
So I decided to make a quilt, in this case I decided to finish a quilt I started over a decade ago (bonus points toward sanity). Quilts do take on a life of their own sometimes. So it isn’t always as controlled as one might think, and this one was no exception.
I made the star blocks over a decade ago after having read a book about color. I don’t remember the theory or philosophy that lead the the choices, but I still love the colors. Every so often I have brought the blocks out, but have never figured out how to put them together. I finally decided to float the stars in a midnight blue sky instead of trying to make a pattern.
Since I started the quilt so long ago and didn’t have a clear enough plan when I started, I did not have enough of the right fabrics to finish the project. The fabrics I used are no longer available and even the basic colors are not in vogue (royal blue seems to be in, not midnight, since when is midnight blue unfashionable?) so finding fabrics cohesive with the color scheme was a bit of a challenge. The fabrics I got to finish things up were not quite what I had in mind when I set out, either to make the quilt in the first place or when I plotted how to finish it this time, but I think the quilt will actually be better than I imagined.
It is coming together now. Having one thing come together, even if it is just a quilt, helps me cope with the stress of waiting for the inevitable crises. Problem is that there are only so many quilts one empty nest can hold.
I wonder if my hobby of putting different bit of fabric together to form a project is related in some way to why I always seem to get the calls?
This post was inspired by the post “Just a Stick in my Spokes” on the Miss Understood blog.
XingfuMama 