Working on lots ... but not much I can show you

I haven’t written much this week because I haven’t done a terrible lot of sewing. I was tied up reading an Einstein biography for my book group instead. It was quite a good book (I learned a lot), but a bit on the long side. I did finish my round robin on Sunday and had planned to post photos later today after we met and exchanged our tops, but the exchange has been postponed for a week so that people have a bit more time to finish up. I don’t want to give away my work, so you’ll have to wait until later to see what I’ve done.


I did however, want to post photos of the Chelsea Boutique quilt that I finished binding over the Christmas holiday. It was a Moda University quilt kit that I purchased from the Fat Quarter Shop last year with a gift certificate from Ben’s mom (thanks again!). I loved the colors of this line and couldn’t resist! It was so nice to be able to purchase it without it costing me anything and the kit even came with binding on a roll, which I had thought would be the most wonderful thing ever (I hate sewing together binding strips when I get close to finishing a quilt). However, I don’t know that I would purchase binding on a roll in the future: I personally think it was wider than I needed or preferred. I think this was 2.5” binding and I now cut all of my own bindings at 2.25” or even slightly narrower to get the fit I like. Sandi Goulet quilted this one for me and did a fabulous job, as usual.

Speaking of quilt kits, the most recent issue of Mark Lipinski’s Quilter’s Home (a fun magazine if you haven’t checked it out) included an article about McQuilting – making quilts from kits and jelly rolls and charm packs - questioning whether addiction to these types of projects causes us to lose our creativity in favor of convenience. I guess for me, it depends on how we choose to define creativity. I personally subscribe to the notion that there is more than one appropriate and relevant definition for creativity: I think of creativity as being the ability to develop new ideas and new interpretations (and thus being original in some way) but also being simply the act of creating, which is to say, creativity could simply be the act of producing something, whatever that something might be. If we adhere to the former definition, perhaps all of these kits do reduce our creativity in that quilters may be mass-producing the same idea rather than striking out on their own to select fabrics and color interpretations. If we adhere to the latter interpretation, perhaps all of these kits actually increase our creative output in that we can hit the ground running to sit down and sew in the limited time we have available. I personally will continue to buy quilt kilts that I like and will also come up with my own fabric combinations. For me, there is a time and place for each.


I was also busy last week getting three backings ready to match three tops I delivered to Sandi for quilting on Saturday. I’ll have these back in time to include in my guild’s upcoming show, so look for photos and updates on those in the future. Finally, I was able to spend a bit of time last evening working on some quick blocks for a couple of small projects from charm packs. I was able to finish up 25 of these while watching Project Runway and part of the local news. Not bad!