Stories, Art, Food, Teaching, Travel, and the other Loves of my Life

Stories, Art, Food, Teaching, Travel, and the other Loves of my Life
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do / With your one wild and precious life?" Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day"
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Best Halloween Costume, Ever...


... just to see you smile!


Monday, October 4, 2010

Monday: Wish I Were Here

Hunched over yards and yards of colorful fabric, upstairs. Tea on the windowsill, kitties on the futon. Patsy Cline on low.

But I'm downstairs, working on a cover letter. Grrr.

But, I wanted to share some of my current dilemma:

At the beginning of the summer, I started my first "quilt." I figured it would be like a first novel, a learning experience where the first one is guaranteed to suck, and you either have to just get the first one out of the way and move on, or spend a decade perfecting the first one.

I figured I'd just get this quilt out of the way. So I chose colors with reckless abandon, with no one in particular in mind. I figured it could be a lap quilt, or a baby quilt for my next niece or nephew. I firmly decided to just learn on this quilt, and not be upset if it didn't turn out perfectly.

I also resolved to actually iron the fabric. Quilting, turns out, is really mostly ironing.

So, I spent a few weeks tooling around on the machine. Here's what I got:

Problem is, now I love it. And I'm terrified to touch it.

It's time to start piecing the blocks together, and sewing borders and backing fabric. I have three fabrics I'm going to use, but I'm not sure which should be the inner border, and which should be the outer border.

Close up of my dilemma:


I'm thinking the flowery blue one should be the backing, because it's a tad girly to be next to the orange one. So then the question becomes, should it be an orange inner border (touching the blocks) and a blue outer border? Or vice verse?