I changed up the quilts page a bit recently to give some better insight to what's going on in my head over here. Drupal lets me be flexible with my content types, and some time ago I set up a content type for my quilts. If you look at http://domesticat.net/quilts you'll see my current works-in-progress are roughly ordered by state of completion. I thought I'd explain the terms; I get the impression sometimes that my friends think this process is really inscrutable, when it's not.

Designing and researching.

It's in my head. There's a fine line between "I have an idea" and "Designing and researching." D&R implies a level of commitment.

My quote from yesterday: "I think I accidentally made a quilt top today." The short story: I did something to my right leg on Saturday - seems like a minor quadriceps strain - and since Jeff was out of state all weekend, I opted to stay home and stay off my leg to let it rest.

Idle minds...

...find the equilter scrap bag and say, OOOOH I WONDER WHAT TROUBLE I COULD GET INTO -- LOOK! COLORS!

Thirty minutes later, I had the entire bag of scrap strips (maybe 3-4 pounds out of the original 5-pound bag?) spread out over the table. I'd been looking at photos of string quilts anyway, and I knew that's what these strips should be used for. One thing tends to lead to another, and when I next looked up, I had them all sorted out by color. (Also, I had Tenzing's undivided attention.)

This is not a real update. This is a set of three photos carefully constructed as a plausible update.

This is the next-to-last night I'll have to work on Das Blinkenlights, as I have a four-hour appointment with a longarm quilter on Saturday morning. Regardless of what the quilt thinks, she's going under the needle on Saturday because Sheila is NOT getting any less pregnant by the day.

I haven't exactly been sewing much since I got back from the Vacation + Furlough Extravaganza. I know this shocks no one, myself included, but it's taken me longer to bounce back from this trip than the previous ones.  My urge to lie on the couch and soak in the quietness that is home is difficult to ignore. Friends can vouch; they've seen little of me.

My sewing machine has missed me, too.  It's been waiting for me to come back and finish Asai's quilt.  I'm actually pretty close; there is a nonzero possibility that I could get very close, or finish entirely, with a diligent weekend's worth of work.

['See? It looks planned!' original photo on flickr. Full photoset here.]

The quilting table is back in business, on a very different project than the one I just finished.  'Red shift' contained a very limited color spectrum (crimson fading to black) and I'd hoped that my next project would be a bit more colorful and free-form.

I've gotten my wish.

The great thing about technoquilting:  it allows me to work with my fabrics on-screen, tweaking and fiddling with the arrangement and design until it feels right to me, and only then applying blade to fabric.  I've set 2009.1 aside for now, because the design isn't right.  I know it isn't right, and it would eat at me as I assembled it.

Since I've got a short time frame for 2009.2, I've switched over to it.

['Currently only a nebula,' on flickr]

Some of you will remember back in November when I mentioned I was working on a quilt I called 'red shift.'

I am cheating and showing pictures ahead of time, but I am aware that neither of the recipients are reading blogs right now, as the female half of the duo is recovering from serious, albeit planned, surgery. (She's doing well.)

Here's what has had me obsessed since November.  All photos from the set are now public. 

You start small, with piles of fabric cut into neat shapes...

and slowly assemble, bit by bit:

and one by one, they become units:

I can tell you what I'm working on.  Sort of.

Anyone who has called the house in the past week -- and for those of you who have called in the evenings this past week to keep me company while Jeff's working insane-o hours, I thank you dearly -- knows that I've been hard at work on a quilt.

Here's the problem:  technically, I shouldn't post pictures.  Why?  It's intended for someone whom I know reads this site. 

Here's the solution: the photos are friends-locked on flickr.  It means the photos won't syndicate on solecist.net, and I can control who sees them on flickr.  Problem solved.

If you're curious to see the quilt that named itself "red shift," pop over to this set on flickr. Users on my friends list will see multiple photos; those not logged in or on my friends list will only see the shot of The Unhired Help:

For those of you who don't keep an eye on solecist.net, here's my current obsession:

[Original on flickr: 'Some assembly required', or see the full photoset]

It's been a good project; it has been at the far edge of my current skill level, and I know I didn't get everything right. Luckily, about halfway through the sewing process, I stopped caring, accepted that lines wouldn't be straight and circles would point off in random directions ... and things immediately got a lot calmer.

The quilt's going to be more idiosyncratic than perfect, but I think I can live with that.

Like virtually every other shirt or dress I've ever owned, it wants to slide off my shoulders. I'd blame my utter lack of sewing skills, but they've picked up more than their share of blame for this project. My shoulders just point down and entropy, like gravity, goes along for the ride.

I finished all principal sewing on my Halloween costume tonight. In fact, I am wearing it, breathless and giggling, as I write these words; I am giving my body a few minutes to relearn how to sit properly in a dress of this type.Scratch 'relearn.' I've never worn anything remotely like this.