#1 Block Orphan

After coming home from the retreat, I pinned all the parts to the blocks because I left the site before finishing the first of my blocks. I had taken a number of photos, so pulled one of them up to discover that I had laid the square block (forming the triangle) on the strip pair going a different direction. Its not that it was wrong as much as it was different and didn't follow the pattern. Women who bought fabric for this quilt got all their darks in one color using different fabrics, and all their lights in one color using different fabrics.

Admittedly, I panicked. The paper pieced cat blocks are still waiting in my front room because they represent a puzzle that is more than I can take looking at. So to do yet another one for myself just freaked me out. 

My fabric selections will make a scrappy quilt using the scraps from my stash rather than going to store and purchasing coordinating colors and patterns. If I hold to the quilt pattern as its written, it will look just fine. One block is too soon to tell if it will work or not. So I re-counted. There is enough to make up another block going in the direction that the pattern calls for. I panicked anyway and realized it was outside my comfort to make it flipped.

I re-pinned a few blocks and started piecing them. It takes less than 5 minutes to piece 1/8 of the block and countless minutes to assemble it, and in fact, its not going to be further sewn until I decide how it will look. What I see in the print copy for the pattern is that the look can get lost if the fabrics fight for dominance or fade. Its another one of those random quilts that needs a bit of thoughtfulness. Not over-thinking, which means looking at it with soft eyes.

Yet, with a little re-arranging, the star blocks showed up more. These 8 blocks are the only ones pieced, and I think I will take the time to layout the colors to see how placement will make it work better on the eye. As long as the 4 sections of the stars are not pieced, its all like playing a game. My plan is to join the triangle pieces over the strips and lay them all out to see what I like. Its an easy block to make that goes together with just a few points to match.

Mysteries. Dang! Funny thing is that I am enrolled in a BOM mystery. They push me way beyond my comfort levels, and for that, I am grateful.

Mysteries of Transformation

While I worked all day on the mystery quilt, I brought it home yet to be finished. There are many mysteries in life, including the one that seems to take place for women when they get tired and extend themselves. We start out with such positive energy and enthusiasm.

I witnessed the hard work everyone was doing, and could see how the project wore on us all. We wanted to see the magick manifest in the quilts we were constructing. Where there was silence on the first day, by the end of the second day, for myself at least, I started to feel the pull of home and my obligations there. I started to feel a sort of frustration at not having this quilt top be finished.

I took some work-in-progress photos. There are many steps to this particular pattern that took a lot of time. My guess is that once these prep steps are done, it will go together quickly. Here are a few photos I took of some of the work stations. Some of us brought fabrics from our stash, some bought all the material needed.

The blocks consist of a dark combination that is a version of the friendship star block. We were urged to make one block at  time in case we wanted to shift the colors around. Scrap quilting should be more intuitive rather than over-thinking it.

As the blocks get assembled, the lights in them will form a secondary star block. None of us reached that stage in our construction. The easy goal was to finish one block before going home again. I did not get there with mine.

This photo below shows the construction layout one participant was using for her 30 blocks so that she could be sure the colors were evenly distributed. I came home to do this, yet chose to do it block by block, pinning lights and darks together. Its a scrappy quilt, so there is no right or wrong way to construct it, yet randomness does take planning.

While the actual event is over, the project is yet to be completed. I've got all pages to the pattern. One of the women discovered that if she took the time to sew another seam, she could create a HST from what might end up as scraps. While it takes more time, I decided to go that route as well, and drew the additional stitching line on those squares. They will make up another border for a project planned for 2016, and will make a great addition to that quilt.

While I was in the store, I bought a couple of FQ's to work on another swap-bot project called the "Butterfly Spirit Guide". This 6" pattern is called "Butterflies on Parade" and is what I am using for a Mug Rug. I chose the Lilac-Bordered Copper Butterfly to send my partner information about. I'll finish the MR with the copper fabric as a binding. The green is on the back too.

The Butterfly affirmation says," I recognize my true beauty within. I value & cherish all that I am. I have the power to transform my life to experience true joy."

It seems to me that quilting is not just making one project. When there are scraps left over that go into one's stash, a quilter has to make choices regarding their use, which means either going into yet another quilt she makes, or giving them up to someone else to use. Even with this Mystery Quilt, those HSTs being created will be used in that panel quilt I plan for 2016. But, in the mean time, they have to be stored with a note-to-self for their designation.

A topic that always seems to come up when I attend such groups is the discussion of stash and our end-of-life plans. Who will want the scraps? Who will finish the unfinished quilt projects? Are we clear about the next steps to the unfinished work for ourselves? Every project that goes back into the closet takes time to review its status when it comes back out.

Sometimes a quilter returns to a project only to realize she no longer has interest in finishing it. Then what? All good questions. And all topics that only come up during the last hour or so. How very much like life.

Still a Mystery

Someone once said that the world always needs magick, because without it, life is nothing but a bag of cheap tricks.

I believe in magick. I believe in the mysteries we encounter in ritual. I like to keep my communications as open and honest as I can, which might be one of the reasons Mystery Quilts challenge me so much.

With a mystery quilt, each step is revealed as it is needed, and you do not know the outcome. I am drawn to them and love most of the ones I made this way. Most, not all. I have learned a lot about myself when I surrender to the process and yet, have retained my common sense when it comes to selecting fabrics from the first page information. I learned from the ones I made that I didn't love.

This year's retreat is a much more quiet one than I have attended in the past. Women have been spending much more time working on the second step and are less chatty. In that step, all of the cut strips were paired, in as many different combinations as we are able to make. 

The third step is to draw diagonal lines on all of the squares. I took this part of the project home because today's session starts at 10, and I am an early riser, so have time to get this done. It took three bobbins to sew the long strips together, therefore, I've brought the empties home to re-load them. All these things take time, and if I can do them on my own, my time at today's retreat session will be more productive.

This is important for me to advance through as many of the steps while with the group's instructor. And today, I will spend some time with other participants to see how they have interpreted the mystery for themselves. 

What Is Pretty

So much in our world isn't pretty. I gave away my TV years ago and never replaced it because I didn't want to watch the horrible news that seemed to dominate the air waves. Even now, I avoid the Facebook posts that are grim call-to-action reports about abuse to children, the elderly, and other beings and parts of the world. I know its out there, but focusing on the negative or what isn't pretty only brings me down.

One of the latest swaps I am in is for a small altar cloth. ALTAR with an "A", meaning a sacred space where one prays or does their magick. What happens or should happen is that a person is altered with an "e" meaning they are changed by how they pray or do their magick. We are changed and the real power of it all is how much we love.

Traditionally, the altar cloth is meant to be the dressing for the divine. I decided to revisit the pattern for the block I sent off without photographing so fast that the aftermath was devastating for me. I used traditional European colors for calling the elements in. Earth=green, Air=yellow, Fire=red, Water=green. And the cross quarters in the corners are seasonal florals, with a purple batik for Spirit. White represents the Divine, SheWho lives and breathes in space & time for us and with us.

It was good practice for me on the new machine. I took special care to have all the blocks trim out to the same size, added a lavender border and a darker purple for binding. The back is the same lavender fabric and so now that one is used up. I would be happy to receive such a cloth and love how it looks. It finishes at 14" and is a perfect centerpiece to an altar by itself or to sit on top of a larger cloth. With all the colors in it, it will go with any decor and fit just about any table size or shape.

I am thinking that one of my PayItForward projects could be an altar cloth, however, I might like to focus on the element of Fire for it and see how I could use up some of the red family of fabrics that I have here. 

Quilting, for me, is my own spiritual declaration against spiritual blindness. I recognize the state of the world and the state of humanity within me and around me. My eyes are open to what exists that is not pretty, yet I refuse to participate in that energy. I chose to work on myself, to pray, to do the magick that alters and heals. Me first, and then the rest of the world.

Layouts & the DVD

Today is all about saying yes to positive choices. I started laying out the cat paper piecing project as well as working on the layout for my younger Sister's quilt. 

All those cat block pieces are numbered and yet they look like a huge puzzle for another day. I need time to sit with them and lay the correct block in its place for each row. That's why they were numbered! I forgot I took that step. It should end with more browns and there is enough fabric to re-do the end blocks if that doesn't show.

The other quilt for my Sister needs frames around some blocks. The foundation for this quilt is a panel, and I do have a pattern for finishing it, so have put it aside. Too many new things coming my way to learn this week. I am feeling overwhelmed by being in this stage with so many projects.

After finishing the stars on the Constellations quilt, it came up star one short. They need to be squared anyway, and so before making only one more star, I want to see if more will need to go into it. 

Then, it needs to be sorted by color and then laid out as a quilt design too. Its safely in its package waiting for next week. It feels good to get this close to that step.

And much to my surprise, my new sewing machine was delivered in time for me to unpack it and see how it starts up. It came with a DVD, so I watched it and learned a lot, even for my previous machine which only came with set-up instructions. This one demonstrated button holes, blind hems, various stitches and tension settings that I never knew on the other one! Its quite lightweight, and works by pushing a button on and off, making the foot pedal optional.

My Own Projects

Some life situations can be so devastating that you wish you you had the courage to just die rather than face them another minute. Well, yesterday wasn't that bad. In fact, I think it takes more courage to keep living. And so, when the sun rose this morning, it was indeed another day worth living.

I started working on a BOM Mystery again. This is the one I am doing with the Aussie group, but it is out of my own stash and will go to someone of my own choosing rather than be a swap. Although it is a mystery, I've decided to take one fabric from the previous block and use it in the next one, and that way see a flow in the finished quilt. I LOVE these colors! This quilt is being built from a group of fabrics I found in my stash.

Then I remembered a work in progress (WIP) for a black and white BOM that my friend here in town & I started together (she is using SW fabrics). Mine is scrappy with B&Ws with that daisy print on black as the unifyer. Each block will use that fabric in some way. I felt like I was on a roll of quilting successes.

One failure yesterday was on the first Churn Dash that left 4 pieces of white & pink that got pieced together today as a smaller block, trimmed to 6.5" for that Wonky Block box. There is nothing wonky about it, only that it is the right size now as more of an orphan block, and will be used as part of a border in the wonky quilt.

And it was about time I got back to the quilts for this year. I pieced 13 more scrappy star blocks. Its going to be a gorgeous quilt with a lot of variety. It needs 9 more star blocks, that all need squaring up, threads cut before they are laid out.

This was a diamond day. Some days are like that.

Gone With the Mail

One of the swap blocks I made got into the mail and it wasn't until I returned home that I realized there was no photo of it, which was a bummer for me. Then I got concerned about writing my feelings and wondered why I needed to be positive when I wasn't feeling all that great about it.

It was interesting to see how forgetting to take the photo let the air out of my creative efforts. I started back at my work, and found myself so self-critical that I began to make small mistakes, turning to my seam ripper over and over. And of course, even that tore into my soul. How silly. How really silly.

The next block I made was the BSA Churn Dash in 2 colors of pink with white. It was ok and yet, I wanted to switch the pinks and see if it turned out better. Its a pattern I've used before and this one called for two colors.

The second one seemed to pop more and brought back a bit more confidence. I'll send both blocks to my swap partner because I just have no use for pink in a block at this time and cannot imagine it for the future. This way, she can chose which one works better for her needs.

I wondered how and why not taking one photo sent me down. Maybe it was something else. It is raining outside and cold. Weather has been building to colder temps and my body feels it. And it is after a birthday. Some folks say that happens too.

Whatever it was, my feelings were real. I think that our culture wants us to label any sort of distress or depression or sadness as being worse of a situation than if you broke a bone or had the flu. Visible illnesses, or accidents are ok where this sadness or disappointment I am feeling is invisible and almost not ok to experience.

There are more advancements being made to recognize the hidden disabilities....dis meaning taking away, putting down...and of course add that to the word ability and whatever a person has that is not the normal functioning level is considered less than.

I watched Dancing with the Stars tonight and one of the latest episodes has a contestant who lost an arm and a leg in the Iraq war. Oh how he is a hero when he gets out and dances, pushing his limits! Yet in last week's episode, the prosthetic arm hurt him and in his frustration, he tore it off and tossed it aside. That dance had to be recreated; he got high praise from the judges and audience. We may never see his daily struggles after the season ends and he is out of the spotlight, in a dark room at night and all alone again. The public, our culture, doesn't want to know that part of a hero's life. We do not look, do not see any brokenness in others. 

Nor do I want to see this part of my life. I want every day to be positive, to be filled with joy, laughter and high productivity. And when it is not, then I feel obligated to find something good to say or at least not write about feeling down. Something simple that goes wrong or is unplanned just gets moved to high trauma drama. Jeeze! That's just so out of balance, yet it is my trauma drama.

 One of my Gramma Anna's favorite songs was by John Denver, who was a hero too; a humanitarian, an overachieving artist & entertainer, and yet struggled personally with relationship issues, addictions, arrests, and endless court cases. I find myself humming it tonight, remembering the music and all the good he did in his life through political activism. 

"I'd like to say I've been fine, and I do; but we both know the truth is hard to come by, and if I told the truth, that's not quite true. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones. Sometimes the hard times won't leave me alone. Sometimes a cold wind blows a chill in my bones. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones..."

Some Days Are Diamonds (You Tube link to the song)