I've been thinking. Not "I've been thinking" in terms of a lunch, an hour, an afternoon, a weekend, a month. More like taking a month of Sundays to think. A year, more like. A year where nobody really heard from me, or might hear a sporadic email or call every now and then. Little past that, and little of substance. Little of it can be shared at all, much less publicly. Not all the stories I have in my head are mine to tell.
I've been good. Despite my friends handing me fabric, I'd managed to decimate my fabric stash this year. Mind you, my stash wasn't that big, especially in comparison to what I've seen mentioned by a few quilt bloggers I read. Me, I'm cranky; if my stash starts building up, it means I'm not using what I'm purchasing, and that doesn't seem like a good use of money.
However, i can give you a taste of what's to come in 2010. You can blame Jacob and Alice. Well, and me.
So, knowing about the box of summer 2009, here's the rest. A little over a year ago, Jeff and I flew out to Hawaii to visit Brad and Alice, who were living outside of Hilo, Hawaii at the time. While we were there, Alice took me to Dragon Mama, a futon shop in Hilo that also carried a gorgeous array of fabric for sewing and quilting.
When we were over at Hallie and Remy's a few months back, she asked if she could show me something. When we went to the back bedroom, she pulled out two sets of quilt squares. One was hexagons** and the other squares. There were 29 squares in all, not enough for a full adult-sized quilt, and she wondered if anything could be done with them. I said yes.
I think back, and I know exactly where it started: a double wedding ring quilt that was sewn by my father's mother. I didn't know her well; let's just say there were severe family differences, but I was too young to be cognizant of that fact at the time. I just knew that I liked the quilt, and it kept me warm. When I look back through the eyes of adulthood, the eyes of someone who has now made a few quilts of her own, I know it was probably pieced out of clothing scraps, and the centers were either plain white cotton or unbleached muslin.
Saturday lunch is a long-standing favorite of ours. It's a chance for Jeff and me to talk without the artificial constraint of a lunch hour, or the tiredness that comes after a work day. Most are unmemorable quick outings; today's will stick in my mind for a while, but not in a good way.
Every person who makes any sort of craft, and gives those crafts away as gifts, hopes those items will go on to have long, useful, and productive lives after they've left the crafter's hands. I got a bit of a preview tonight:
So, if you'd asked me the question even up until a few days ago, I would have said the answer was yes! Over the past year or so, I've been trying to find a few quilt blogs to read, quilt blogs of people whose sense of color and design interested and challenged me, and let me tell you -- these blogs were killing my spirit.
I'm starting to lay groundwork for a quilt that I'm making -- get this! -- for myself. I promised Jacob that I would use at least part of his fabric presents to me to actually create a quilt that I would keep for myself. It's taken on a life of its own, though: it's actually going to be my first two-sided quilt.
I'm pretty sure there's a place in geek hell for people like me. So @webchick posts something (private) about Drupal's form API and arrays, and my response?
Let me be clear. I have serious technolust for this Punctirus jewelry, but I don't believe it's available for sale yet. Originally seen at Art. Lebedev:
Sunday afternoon. I've done almost no sewing this week; I've been mentally drained out of proportion to my actual physical tiredness. Jeff and I took our first stab at geocaching yesterday with mixed results, but we intend to try again; today we caught a morning matinee of 'Sherlock Holmes' and then made a quick grocery run before heading home.
Jeff sleeps right now, having stayed up a good chunk of the night while the storms were rolling through. The cats, fed, are hunting for warm places to nap. A good Sunday, overall.
Some people have a bucket list. I get the general idea but I find the approach depressing. I'd rather think of the process of life instead of focusing on its endpoint; as a result, I refer to my list as a Life List.
#5: Successfully complete a Mariner's Compass quilt.
