Wednesday, July 20, 2011

A New Start



I am happy to say that after all this time, my sewing mojo has returned. It had been sad for me the last few months before Olivia's arrival that I had no physical stamina to get down to it in the sewing room and left me feeling a bit guilty every time I would go in to visit and pet my beloved yet neglected fabric stash. And so I am quite pleased with my rapid recovery and newly found inspiration!

After wading through countless UFOs that need my attention, I found I was overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of some of my projects (what was I smoking when I started THREE king sized quilts?) or just not turned on by others (picking up my single girl seemed too fussy; the quilt-as-you-go-blocks were just not speaking to me). So I decided to shelve it all for now, let go of the UFO guilt and do what I really wanted to do - start a shiny new quilt.


Since I hadn't been able to sew for such a long while I spent a lot of time pouring over my quilting books, and each time I'd come back to the glorious Maple Leaf Rag scrap quilt from Material Obsession 2 (if you haven't checked this book out yet - do it). Not only is it just the thing I need creatively at the moment, it will vacuum up beautifully the metric ton of scraps I've been hoarding. These crazy fabric diamonds or 'kites' are the first step in piecing the Maple Leaf Rag. I'm having a ball diving into my scrap dumpster and sewing all these bits together - I need 128 kites total and I'm already over halfway there.

Hooray for new projects! I'm off to go work on it now while Lucy and Olivia show me the sweet courtesy of napping simultaneously.

12 comments:

  1. How beautiful! I can't wait to see what the finished quilt looks like!! And hooray for simultaneous naps.... ;-)

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  2. Oh wow - I have been eying that exact quilt! Like I need another ufo....I may need to join you though!

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  3. Fun fabrics! I think you chose just right!

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  4. simultaneous naps . . . I think more than your sewing mojo has returned. You my friend have hit the motherhood lottery!

    Okay I have to ask just to be cheeky (and because it drove me nuts when people asked me this) shouldn't you be napping when they nap? That always seemed so crazy to me, of course not, that is when you get some me time!

    Congrats on everything.

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  5. hooray for tandem napping! and double hooray for sewing! i love those books and look forward to your patchwork. hooray!

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  6. Oh this will be fantastic! I was trying to decide between maple leaf and the "sister" to maple leaf by Kathy.... maybe both? Can't wait to check out your progress!

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  7. I just love your thought process. Hooray for shiny new projects!! Glad to hear you are finding time at the machine. That is nothing short of miraculous with two little ones! Enjoy your kites.

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  8. What a great project! Your kites are so unique with all those scraps. It'll be an amazing quilt!

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