Happy Friday, everyone! So many people joked throughout this week about how long it seemed, even after it was a shorter week with the holiday on Monday! Our week was busy with lots of school and band things—I may have practically lived at my kids’ schools most evenings this week!
Baking Doodle Cowl Test Knit: I’ve made a dedicated effort to put in some serious time on the Baking Doodle Cowl test knit because I was pretty far behind at the beginning of the week due to losing most of my regularly-scheduled knitting time (ie. Sitting in the van during kids’ music lessons and rehearsals) to my kids being sick the past couple weeks and not leaving the house. I’m now about 25% done with it, which is great, except for the part where I was supposed to be 50% done with it by yesterday. There will be much knitting over the weekend.
New FQS Pattern: I put in an amazing day of work on Monday and I can now boast that all my half-square triangles are sewn and trimmed! I have another big sewing day scheduled for this upcoming Monday, which I’m hoping boasts some reality-bending wormhole capabilities that will allow me to progress on this at a phenomenal rate, hitherto unknown to mankind.
Super Secret Project: I have another project on my plate that didn’t materialize until just this week, even though it’s genius and I’m really annoyed that it didn’t occur to me until one random day during a random conversation with a few of my children. I don’t even want to commit to it because I know I don’t have the time AT ALL—but it’s too perfect an opportunity to pass up, so I’m launching myself into the future, laughing hysterically and hoping I can pull this off.
Spring Tea Party: The girls want to throw one, so we’re talking about it in loose terms at this point.
Garden: The seedlings are coming along. I had five Delphinium sprouts at the beginning of the week, but now I think I only have two. I’ve rarely been successful in nurturing Delphiniums to maturity, so it’s not surprising. Annoying and frustrating, but not surprising.
My little countertop herb garden is out of control and the plants are cramming into the light source every other day, despite my dedicated efforts to pruning them back almost every day. There has been a lot of dill in a lot of recipes lately. Michael’s not the biggest fan of dill, but thankfully, it’s not terribly strong when it’s fresh. Perhaps he’ll acquire a taste for it with the insane amount he’s eating now. Also, this experience is helping me to lose my fear of over-harvesting herbs. I cut these plants back to practical baldness and you cannot tell in two days’ time. It’s good to gain firsthand experience with that because I’ve always been scared to use the herbs in my garden in truly meaningful ways because I’m afraid I’ll kill them with each reaping. I’m learning that that is absolutely not true!
Renaissance College Plans: We’ve received notification from two of the schools she applied to that she’s been accepted! She goes in this weekend to audition for a music scholarship, so fingers crossed that it goes well! She’s torn between continuing her study of music or going to a technical college in pursuit of a degree in Culinary Arts/Pastry Baking. We’re pushing her to just prepare for both, see which one will be most financially viable, and then make a decision from there. (And seriously, I wish I had known about the pastry baking option when I was young! What a cool career idea!)
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It is mind boggling to me that I managed to abstain from most creative endeavors for eighteen months! Of course, one way that I dealt with the inevitable withdrawal pangs was to promise myself that I’d be allowed to work on crafty things to my heart’s content once I was done with school, which has resulted in a HUGE “Want to Make” list. Unfortunately, now that we’re to the point of being able to grapple with all the beautiful projects I earmarked, I’m overwhelmed by all of my choices! What a fantastic problem to have! Hee hee. I work through decisions better with writing and visuals, so here’s what’s on my mind:
Quilts:
Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt: (ASAP) I am finally quilting this! It’s horrible quilting because 1) I’m very out of practice, and 2) I wasn’t that great a quilter to begin with, but it’s in-progress! I’ve realized that the quilting step is the huge bottleneck for my quilts; there was a time when I could just send them out to a long-arm quilter and wash my hands of the task, but prices and shipping have gotten so expensive in recent years that I can’t justify the cost anymore. I invested in another sewing machine with a much larger throat space so I can quilt my own quilts, but they’re definitely not as pretty as the long-arm pantos that I love. Sigh. Done is better than perfect here. And hey, maybe I’ll actually develop my quilting skills to a level that pleases me. The Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt will not reflect that sort of level, but I’m telling myself it’s ok because it’s a scrap quilt that will get the snot kicked out of it anyway, so wonky quilting won’t be a tragedy.
Far Far Away Quilt: (ASAP) I started this one back in 2022 and even worked on it a little during a school break. It’s sewn into its rows and is awaiting the rest of the top assembly, which will then require me to pull out all the foundation papers, which is causing me some task paralysis because papers removal just plain isn’t fun! But, oh…it’s a pretty quilt! Cara! Just slog through the unpleasant part and get this finished so you can have this awesome quilt! Geez!
Chatsworth Block of the Month: (January-December) This is a sew along hosted by Fat Quarter Shop this year and I really want to participate because I’ve been collecting some fabrics for a couple of years now that will work really, really well for it! The first installment of blocks were due by the end of last month, but I haven’t started yet.
Piece & Quilt Sampler Sew Along: (March 2024-February 2025) Another sew along with the Fat Quarter Shop. I bought the pattern book a while back because it looked awesome, and then I saw there was a sew along this year and I got really excited about it. I’ve even stash-dived and decided on some great fabric to use. The question is whether or not I have time for it? You can look at the general info and fabric requirements here if you’re also interested. It’s going to be a pretty quilt!
Birthday quilt for Nathaniel: (April) He at least has his own Christmas quilt, but alas, still no everyday quilt, and he rarely resists the opportunity to bring it up in conversation that I’ve deeply neglected him in failing to provide this necessity of life. He’s given up on the Rocket Age quilt, and has been asking for a pig quilt for a couple of years.
Reading Nook Quilt: (May) For the most part, I avoided even looking at fabric while I was working on my master’s degree; but, during a particularly stressful couple of weeks of student teaching, I indulged in a lot of online window shopping as I grappled with the challenges I was facing. As luck would have it, Ruby Star Society’s “Reading Nook” collection was released that week and I was completely smitten with its adorableness and ordered a fat quarter bundle of it with the promise that I could make myself a reading quilt once student teaching was completed. I’ve mocked up a pattern for it, it’s super simple and satisfying, but I’ve lacked time to start working on it. I’d really like to finish this as a birthday gift to myself this year.
Fig Tree Strawberry Garden Block of the Month: (May 2024-April 2025) Another FQS sew along; I absolutely love it and hope I can make it happen! I’ve placed a reservation order for the book and I’ve definitely got enough stashed Fig Tree fabrics to work with, so it wouldn’t even require purchasing fabrics.
Renaissance Graduation/College Quilt: (June/August) ‘Cuz I gotta. No idea what I’m going to make or what fabric/color palette I’ll use. I figure that will get worked out once we get her through the college application/acceptance process.
Penguin Christmas quilt for Renaissance: (November) Because she’s a senior in high school this year and she still doesn’t have her own Christmas quilt! She’s been making do with the Hipster Christmas Tree quilt, but I’d really like to get her very own, made-specifically-for-her quilt done before Thanksgiving this year. I have no idea where she’s heading after high school; she’s vacillating between studying music out of state or staying close to home and earning a technical certificate in pastry arts, so the quilt could be a “welcome home for the holidays” thing or it might not be. It is nerve-wracking to watch your barely-adult children make these huge decisions.
Gingerbread Christmas quilt for Rachel: (November) Rachel also doesn’t have her very own made-for-her Christmas quilt. She’s been making do with the Double-Nine Patch quilt I made for Fat Quarter Shop back in 2018, but has been wishing and wishing for a gingerbread quilt for years and years. Due in large part to the euphoria of having submitted my last ever final paper right before Black Friday, I bought an embarrassing amount of fabric at various quilt shops’ Black Friday sales, and the majority of it was various precuts and yardages of the Holiday Cheer collection by My Mind’s Eye, solely for the purpose of finally sewing up a “just for Rachel” Christmas quilt.
English Paper Piecing quilts: I have four in-progress and it would be nice to finish up some of them. There’s the Star Spangled Diamonds quilt from forever ago that needs borders, the Smitten quilt that needs a few more filler pieces to assemble the top, a Christmas-themed jewel quilt I started this last Christmas because I wanted a Christmas project to work on in the car, and the Roses Hexagon quilt that I’ve slowly been working on for years whenever I need a break from current projects.
Knitting:
I don’t think I have any definitive knitting projects in mind, which makes me sad. It’s just not that cold here in Washington, when compared to winter weather in Utah, so the need just isn’t that high anymore. However, I just like the *feel* of knitting needles in my hands, so I’d like to do more knitting…I just don’t know what to work on. I wonder if I equate knitting with babies and children for the most part, and because there’s really no little people in our families anymore, there’s not a lot of pressure to knit right now?
However, I do have a lot of stash. Some things I’m inspired to make when I think about my stash are:
Lace shawls: I have a lot of laceweight yarn in really beautiful colors. Unfortunately, I don’t really lead a life that uses lace shawls, so creating them to then just let them sit is silly. I could try to become a shawl-wearing person, though…or just enjoy the creative process and not worry so much about the end product.
Socks: I also have a lot of fingering-weight yarn that would make good socks. I think I just need to grant myself permission in this vein. Socks are awesome mindless knitting that are oh-so-portable. I should pause my EPP in the car and concentrate on knitting instead until the weather warms up.
School mascot hat/beret: I was exploring yarn shops in the area and bought some yarn in my kids’ high school colors because I had a vision of a cool beret knit in fair isle technique of the school mascot. Should probably move along on this idea.
Brooklyn Tweed Shelter project: I’ve been collecting random colorways for years, and decided, on a whim, to cast on a Baa-ble Hat last week. I’m enjoying knitting it up!
Clothing
I have so much apparel fabric and I literally have no plans to use any of it. It’d be nice to get back into clothing sewing, but my focus may just be on quilts this year. I don’t know even know where I’d start with clothes. There is a lovely feeling of satisfaction when you sew your own clothes, though…I miss it.
Embroidery
Weird things happen when you put things on your Amazon wish list—sometimes your husband will actually buy you the things! Michael generously gifted me an embroidery machine for this Christmas, and it’s on my radar to learn how to use the thing…at some point. I didn’t think I’d ever receive it as a gift, so I have no plans in effect. I put it on my wishlist while I was really leaning into tablescaping for the holidays and I think I’d enjoy creating specially embroidered table linens. And monogrammed bridal handkerchiefs. And I’ve always wanted embroidered pillowcases with matching embroidered flat sheets, and, and, and…hee hee hee. It might take A WHILE to circle around to this, though; I really do have a lot of quilty plans to plough through first!
So that’s what I’ve got on my mind for 2024. I guess I should print out this list and hang it up somewhere to remind me that I’ve got some serious sewing to get to this year! I really got out of the habit of daily creativity during grad school, but I missed it dearly and am going to make an earnest effort to reintegrate creativity back into my daily life. Wish me luck! And I wish YOU luck with your project goals for 2024!
My first true venture back into a crafty lifestyle after working on my Masters degree is finished! It’s interesting how much of quilt-making was still just there in my bones, and how some of it was like, “I know I’ve done this before, why can I not remember how to do this part?” Completely random, but then I’d figure it out after a couple seconds and be off and away. Remember, kids…repetition builds learning!
This baby quilt is for a dear friend back in Utah who just had her fourth baby after a bit of break after her third…eleven years, actually. But this friend of mine ADORES having babies and she was THRILLED at the news, so it was such a happy pregnancy to watch unfold. Everyone is happy for her and her husband!
This family names all their kids after American Presidents, so I figured I’d go with a patriotic fabric collection. As luck would have it (or not…?) Baby Hayes was born on the 4th of July, so it will be perfect for him.
Fabric: “Stateside” by Sweetwater for Moda. I used one charm pack cut into fourths, and the background fabric is the Vanilla Stars print. I used the Sky Bandana print for the binding.
Not the most productive week, crafty-wise, but I did get some stuff done.
Last week’s goals were:
Finish the Patriotic Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt and get it in the mail!
Possibly start on the Farm to Table Baby Quilt.
Scrappy Thursday: Either keep working on the Mixed Berries quilt or start a scrappy Christmas gift. (I’m pretty sure the Leaders & Enders quilt is not going to be happening right now.)
Use music lesson time for EPP and not phone scrolling. (I can’t really make a more specific goal for this quilt each week because it’s so dependent on so many different people’s schedules lining up.)
Possibly finish Nilla the Unicorn.
Patriotic Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt: Not finished, STILL. Everything except the label is done, and the label is even created, just not attached to the quilt. Sooo close, but…summer evenings just don’t induce me to do a lot of sewing.
Farm to Table Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt: Not officially started, but I did pull out the fabrics at some point this week to take a picture of them for some reason.
Scrappy Thursdays: I decided to keep going on the Mixed Berries Quilt because I’ve been waiting to work on this one for FOREVER and I’m not feeling any of the other quilts right now. I cut and sorted all the blue fabrics for the large blueberry blocks, got one block’s worth of purple fabrics cut, and started on red. It turns out that I don’t have a lot of purple scraps, which is weird because I know I’ve bought a ton of purple fabric over the years because it’s Rachel’s favorite color…hmmm, methinks I need to go dig out the box of fabrics that Rachel curated for the quilt she was working on during the pandemic. I’m thinking there might be some purples hiding in that box.
Smitten Quilt: I was so good and used all 2.5 hours of music lesson time to stitch away on my EPP and I finished up another combo block of small hexies.
Nilla the Unicorn (Knitting): She’s done! Time to write up a blog post about her!
Alright, let’s talk next week’s #craftygoals:
Get the Patriotic Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt out of my house
Start sewing like a mad woman on the Farm to Table quilt
Keep plugging away on the Mixed Berries quilt.
Find the Rachel box and see if she’s hoarding purple fabrics.
Keep using music lesson time for EPP. It’d be good to get another combo block done.
Knitting: I have no idea! I was going to order yarn to make a Little Cotton Rabbits pattern, but then the yarn was going to be $85 and that just gave me pause. I could knit from my stash…ugh, so boring. Or I could start moving forward with some Halloween decorations I have on my mind, OR I could start moving forward with designing and knitting a hat I have on my mind. We’ll see…
Well, that’s it for the #craftygoals July 2023! Still getting my feet planted beneath me for a solid crafty foundation, but I have high hopes for a more productive August! See you next week with a new month’s list of projects!
Hello again, my crafty lovelies! I missed a couple beats on the crafty check-ins, but I’m trying to get back into it again. I do this every year: I think that summer vacation will mean lots of downtime and I’ll use that downtime to sew and knit and embroider and paint and all the happy creative things that make my heart sing, when in reality summer vacation is doing a lot of stuff with the Brookelets and trying to get the house cleaned up and ready for the next school year. Not an actual lot of time for crafting. AND THEN I think, “OK, well, just wait until autumn and when the kids go back to school because then you’ll have time for crafting.” But nope! That’s when pep band, drama practice and everything else starts. The teenager years are busy, busy, busy!
The Big Declutter 2023 Project is still going big in our house, so that’s cutting into crafty time tremendously. Also, the kids have become obsessed with spending time together as a family in the evening, and I had scheduled the bulk of my sewing time for the evenings because they normally do not want to spend time together after dinner…so…yeah…even less crafty time happening because I’m choosing to spend time with my kids when they ask for it. It’s weird and I don’t know how long it will last, but I’ll show up for every minute until it ends.
Patriotic Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt: I officially started and finished quilting it today, so major progress finally happening on this project! I ran into a lot of problems getting my new machine set up, and the craft room was a disaster that needed some decluttering, and then blah, blah, blah…took a while to get going on the quilting. After I’m done writing this post I’m planning to head back into the craft room and trim it and hopefully get the binding done today. I’d really like to get this into the mail on Monday.
Scrappy Thursdays: I started working on my Farm Girl Vintage “Mixed Berries” quilt this week! I have background squares and stem squares cut for all sixteen 12-inch berry blocks.
Going forward, I think I need to boot the Clementine Quilt out of the Scrappy Thursday line-up because I simply don’t show up to work on it when it’s its turn. I am not gelling with this quilt right now, and I think it needs to be back into hibernation so I can get some actual work done on anything else. Clementine’s time will come, eventually.
Next week I’m supposed to work on the Leaders & Enders quilt, but that might change because I have no plan whatsoever for it and I’m eyeing Christmas on the horizon and I’d really like to start on some Christmas gifts. We’ll see…
Smitten EPP Quilt: I pieced my first of many of the small hexagons into a large hexagon filler block, and started working on the second one. I need to cut some diamonds for the filler blocks. I work on this while I’m sitting in the car at my kids’ music lessons, so it limps along in the summer due to last-minute cancellations and the like. It’ll pick up steam in the autumn when lesson schedules are consistent again.
Nilla the Unicorn (Knitting): I’ve made it a goal to knit for thirty minutes after lunch most days. Renaissance bought a cross stitch kit on one of our excursions in recent weeks, and so she joins me outside each day as well and we stitch in the sunshine together. It’s one of the best parts of my day!
Since my obsession with the Little Cotton Rabbits has not died down, I decided to do a test run with knitted animals and dug out a knit unicorn kit that I bought four or five years ago for Rachel at the Madrona Fiber Festival that she never got around to knitting up and I’ve been working on that. My family has named it Eeyore and insists that it’s a donkey because it turned out that I had no yellow worsted-weight yarn scraps to make its horn and I’m waiting for my KnitPicks order to arrive so I can do that.
So that’s it for the last two weeks. #craftygoals for the upcoming week are:
Finish the Patriotic Mini Charm Chiffon Baby Quilt and get it in the mail!
Possibly start on the Farm to Table Baby Quilt.
Scrappy Thursday: Either keep working on the Mixed Berries quilt or start a scrappy Christmas gift. (I’m pretty sure the Leaders & Enders quilt is not going to be happening right now.)
Use music lesson time for EPP and not phone scrolling. (I can’t really make a more specific goal for this quilt each week because it’s so dependent on so many different people’s schedules lining up.)
Hello Lovelies! How were your Fourth of July celebrations, my American friends? And how were your Canada Day celebrations, my Canadian friends? Those are the only ones that come to mind at the moment, so I apologize if I missed anyone’s big international things. I can only keep track of so much!
We did basically nothing beyond grilling some sausages and hot dogs and then driving around to look at fireworks and get bit by mosquitoes. It threw off my sleep schedule mighty bad and I’m reminded of why I choose not to be a night owl. CARA DOESN’T DO STAYING UP LATE.
Just thought I’d pop in and figure out where I am with the crafting so I can have my head wrapped around where I’m going with things in the next week. Here we go:
Patriotic Mini Chiffon Baby Quilt: The top is complete, I’ve got the backing and batting cut, and all that’s left is basting, quilting, and binding! I’ve hit a bit of a snag with quilting that I’m trying to figure out, but it’ll be fine. My friend actually had her baby on July 4th, which is just so ridiculously on-brand for their family’s patriotism, so I’m sewing like the wind to get this made up quickly and out the door. Nothing bad will happen if it takes longer, but you know how it starts to feel with baby quilts for babies that have already debuted. Apparently I haven’t taken any photos since I finished the blocks though, so no photos for you this week.
Scrappy Thursdays: I finished the blocks for the Brickhouse quilt! Now on to picking out fabrics for sashing and borders and then assembling all that. I won’t come back to this until the first week of August, but it feels great knowing that all the blocks are pieced!
Smitten EPP Quilt: I finished the last full block and laid it out in the living room to figure out placement and what colors I’ll make all the extra little bits. There’s still a lot of work to be done on this quilt, but I’m really enjoying the process.
New Rabbit Hole: As I was working on the Patriotic Baby Quilt this week, I got to thinking how I’d like to add some more handmade items to the total gift and thought about the idea of knitting up a little stuffed animal to include. I dived headfirst into that rabbit hole, decided I’d quickly knit up a free pattern that I found, and then the next morning looked at it all again and decided that this was not the time to make this happen and that a quilt is plenty enough gift.
HOWEVER, during my mad dive into stuffed animal knitting territory, I discovered the most cutest knit designer who keeps a blog and it is just so beautiful and inspiring and it makes me want to reclaim those glory days of blogging so very much: Little Cotton Rabbits. Oh my gosh, do I love reading her blog and, once things calm down and I can indeed include little stuffed animals with baby quilts, I am going to knit up every single one of those little patterns (Ravelry link) until my fingers bleed because they are beyond cute and I’m weirdly obsessed with how quintessentially British they are. My whole family is sick of hearing me talk about them, but I’m not going to stop talking about them anytime soon.
Alright, happy crafting to you all in the upcoming week! Find time for the things that make you happy!
I’ve been working away on the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt, spurred on by the, frankly, heartwarming reception my kids have been giving it whenever they wander through the craft room. Everyone loves to look for fabrics they remember, and oh my goodness, have I been feeling like a Winner.
I finally got all the borders attached and laid out the quilt on a bed so it wouldn’t wrinkle while I prepared the backing. I mentioned to Emms that the quilt was pieced in its entirety and laid out on the bed if they wanted to see it in its full glory, and they headed off to the room. Moments later they shrieked and then started laughing, which piqued my curiosity and Nathaniel’s, so I went into the room after he ran in and saw this:
So I walked around the end of the bed to see what was so interesting, and saw it:
And those little punks squealed with glee, took pictures of it, and texted it to their friends for a laugh.
And you know how people say, “Will it matter in ten years?” I decided that yes, it would still matter in ten years and they would probably still be making fun of me, so I decided to fix it:
I don’t think it will matter much, jokes about snipers and presidential assassinations are going pretty strong in our house at the moment.
And it’s no longer the “Rainbow Coin Strip quilt” to my kids, it’s now called the “Kennedy Sniper quilt.” Which is not a name you want people to adopt for anything you make, ever.
Seriously, who OK’d the decision to put that on fabric?!?! Why?!?! What quilt would be elevated with that headline?!?!
I imagine it was one of the fat quarters included in a low volume or text only bundle, and when I was cutting fabric for the border I just grabbed white fabrics with black on them, no reading necessary, stacked them in a pile and did a batch cut. And then I sewed them together, right sides facing, so I missed it again. Ugh.
Oh well, the hexagons are cute, and it allowed me to use up a little bit of canvas that’s been sitting in the stash since I made the original Storybook Hexagons quilt with it. It was nice to revisit memories of that quilt, which is still to this day the most popular quilt on this blog.
And now that adorable fabric is covering up a presidential assassination headline. Lovely.
It only occurred to me now, as I sat down to write this blog post, that this isn’t actually a scrap project. BUT…it was in my scrappy project bins for some reason; I’m thinking I threw the blocks into whatever bin was handy as I packed up my craft room three years ago, and I didn’t think beyond “What’s in the scrappy project bins?” when deciding what projects to put into the Scrappy Thursday rotation. Oh well. It’s been a long time that this has been waiting, and this is the way I’ll be able to get it done the fastest, so I’ll just go forward with it.
Of course, just because I put some of the fabrics into the project bin didn’t mean I put all of the fabrics into the bin, so I spent a large portion of my sewing time trying to locate the background fabric for this quilt. It was tucked away with a completely different quilt I was working on when we had to pack up, and those two quilts were jammed into the back of a Christmas drawer, despite not being Christmas-related quilts whatsoever. (I never want to move again.)
Alright, Month #3 is the Peaches & Plenty block, and geez…these blocks took forever to make! I don’t know if I’ve gotten extremely slow or what, but I think I put at least six hours into these. Not my favorite pattern, but it doesn’t matter anymore because they’re DONE and now I’ll move on with my life. Woo hoo!
It was nice to revisit this project and look through it again and start getting excited. It’s an interesting-looking finished quilt that is different from anything else I’ve ever made, and I’m looking forward to the completed project…which should hopefully happen in May. Slow and steady…
Month 3 blocks are the ones on the right. Building up a collection!
I was supposed to get these done last month, but it didn’t work out that way. I’m hoping to get onto the Month 4 blocks this month as well, but we’ll see how well that pans out.
Since I never formally introduced you, let me redress my errors: Meet the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt:
You all know that I’ve been more than a little obsessed with working through my scrap bins for quite a few years now, and this was an effort to push forward on that goal back in 2019. I came across a quilt block in Electric Quilt that just erupted into a full quilt in my mind’s eye and looked like it would do a very good job at handling the little skinny strips of leftover fabric/strings that I found myself drowning in at that moment. So I went ahead and got pretty far on the quilt before 2020 arrived and everything went off the rails.
But it’s back, and I’m making good progress. This is a great quilt for using up pieces of fabric that you just can’t seem to use in anything else, especially those white backgrounds with colored designs prints. I’ve been specifically targeting the fabrics in my bins that I’ve hand on-hand for a long time because they’re tough to fit into quilts due to various issues, and man, does it feel good to use ’em up!
A sweet moment happened Friday evening: Emms came through the craft room and noticed the quilt on my cutting table, and squealed, “It’s the shower curtain fabric!” I laughed and said yes it was, and how fun it was sewing up all the little scraps and bits from so many projects I’d worked on in years past. Emms then took about five minutes looking at all the blocks and pointing out all the fabrics they remembered from the various things I’d made for them over the years and reminiscing about wearing and playing with said handcrafted items. Oh, it made my mama heart happy. Emms celebrated their 18th birthday this last week, and goodness is my heart sore with the pangs of knowing they’re going to be heading on out into the world soon. It was nice to hear of some of the small joys of their childhood for a few minutes. Made me feel like I’d done some things well.
I had been stewing over what to do with this quilt once it was finished; I honesty thought I was going to give it away up until Emms’ nostalgic perusal. Not anymore, this sucker is staying in the house. (Maybe it’ll need to head off to a certain college dorm room in the autumn?)
I’m hoping to get this quilted this week, we shall see…
That Crafty Cara 