Beginning of the Day

I start my mornings quite early, so when I look in the mirror towards the end of the day, I see a very tired face, tussled hair, and almost a sag in my whole energetic body. Its a very different image from what I saw in the morning when my creativity was more brilliant and my energy so much higher. 

I do not work much past 3 or 3:30 pm most days for this reason. Fresh starts give me fresh perspectives on things in the morning that I know would simply drive me crazy if I tried to resolve them later in the day. I've learned that I cannot accomplish everything in one day, and completing something quickly can reduce the quality I hoped to see.

As I become more skilled in this fabric art, the results are those of accumulated experience, my own mature development and the ongoing application of healthy principles for resting and ergonomics.

David's quilt is a larger lap size, and is the size that is most manageable for me. I worked all day on it yesterday, and was bone weary when I turned the machine light off and folded the quilt up for the night. This morning, I added the last line between the last borders.

Although its not finished, it did get to the place of where the binding had to go on. There were no official plans for it. After trimming, what I had were thinner scraps, too thin for the traditional binding of 2.5" wide.

I was pretty pleased with  the binding on Cole's mini quilt, and decided to look for some fabrics included in David's, which is a Log Cabin built with scraps and supplemented with some purchased pieces. The darker brown is the backing. The lighter brown next to it (see above) is a goodly size piece that was used as one of the 'logs' in the pattern. 

There are many recent sites online demonstrating the use of the Faux-Piped Binding that often originate from a Sept. 2012 issue of American Quilter magazine, and this time I chose the one on a blog by Pat in Color Me Quilty. 

Binding is cut 1 1/2 inches wide and Piping is cut 1 3/4 inches wide, pieced together length-wise. The first pressing folds the seam toward the piping.

Then they are pressed in half with backs together so the piping shows up top.

I have a lot of pressing and pinning to do before returning to the quilt in the morning to sew it on. There are a lot of basting threads to remove and end threads to deal with, so for now, its all on my lap and keeping me cozy.

What I do this day may not tie all loose ends in my life together, but as I sit and do this work on David's quilt, a few of them will tighten a little more. Tomorrow always holds great promises for me because I see it as a series of steps along my path.