Day 1-Not Quilting

I've said it before, quilting has become an addiction for me. When I went into town today, I could have just run all the other errands and skipped going into the quilt shops. But no-o-o-o. Not only did I visit one, but I stopped at both of them.

Its not like I planned to pull out the projects again. However, my first purchase was for borders on The Great Pumpkin quilt.  The measurements I took said I needed 3/8 for the first border and 5/8 for the next one. I have a yard for the last border. I didn't need to pull out the project, and did. Just to see. However, I put it back with the new fabric and closed the closet doors.

The first shop doesn't sell Charm Packs and that is what I needed for that project; the table runner swap I am in has a specific rule about using a CP rather than building the runner from stash. Rules ask for a photo of the paper wrap from around the CP with its name. I could have stopped there with the purchase, yet opened it to discover that it doesn't have entirely the look for what I wanted to do for the table runner.

Yes, I laid the colors out to see what was there. I mean after all. The pack is real 'woodsy' or has a 'nature' feel to it. It is named for the Minnesota state flower, the Lady Slipper, and of course, it is going to be lovely. It has enough color to add a lot of interest. That's what charm packs do. This was what was available to me. My partner requested purples. The first one I started uses purples and is going to be stunning. 

I wasn't happy with my choices for the patterns and went back online looking for 'charm pack table runner patterns'. This one is going together in uncut blocks as squares. 

Here I am 'not quilting' and spending hours online looking for table runner patterns using charm packs! I've laid out those 42 squares in endless ways and with all the green, vanilla and sand colors, the purples get lost even though there are more of them in the pack. 

The swappers are allowed a little bit of background, binding and backing fabric to finish, and so I pulled out some other good quality purple fabric that draws out the flowers on the various squares, and adds more balance & brightness to the layout. I plan to finish the other one that used up charms from my stash in time for holiday giving, once I get back to my quilting projects. Just not this week.

Whew. I did ok not quilting today. What happened confirms that I am addicted. No one is fooled by anything. Just because I didn't sit in front of the sewing machine doesn't mean that my attention was taken up by it all. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the week goes.