Giving Myself A Reality Check

I was sitting here this morning, reading through some blog posts that make their way into my inbox, and saw that the Blogger’s Quilt Festival is going on.  I haven’t ever had a chance to share a quilt for this and thought about finding something in the archives and realized I don’t really have anything to share.  Everything I make I pretty much share.  Then I was feeling kind of lame about not having much to show for this year and then I had a reality check.  I made 16 full size quilts in a 3 month period (essentially) plus some smaller projects.  That is the most quilting I’ve ever done at one time in my life.  So while I feel like I have nothing to show for my time, I really have quite a bit, I just can’t share it quite yet.  So I started shifting through my photos and thought I’d share some from my time during those months, giving you just a glimpse of some of what I did.  I didn’t take very many photos this year, I was too busy sitting in front of the computer or sewing machine working, but sometimes I picked up the camera to take photos of what I was doing for later illustration or instruction.  So while I have no large quilts to share, here is a peek at some of what I did this last year.  The above photo is of my kitty-boy’s checking out Sarah’s light (she took the photo).  We were doing some of the technical photos for the book and as you know from the previous post, Newman ALWAYS has to help.  I had to keep shooing him off the table.

As you can see, Newman really loved me making so many quilts.  He had to test them all out…every step of the way, from freshly ironed fabric, to cut and assembled pieces to the finished top. 

I especially love this series of photos I captured of Newman. It shows how obsessed this cat is with my fabric.  He wasn’t close enough to it so he had to get up, stretch and reposition himself so he was actually touching it.  White no less.  What would I do without him?  Seriously, though, he was the best stress relief during that time. 

Norman would “help” occasionally.  It’s really hard to iron fabric when they decide they want to lay on it.  I have so many photos of them from the months I spent working on all those quilts.  If you follow me on Instagram, you clearly know how much I love my cats as they get posted at least once a day doing some silly thing or another.

And then there were times that I would get burnt out and had to take a brain-break and cover everything I could with Washi tape.  My machine is now prettied up with lots of washi tape.  I have a project I’m working on this weekend (hopefully) and can’t wait to share all the details with you in the next week or two.  I picked up fabric yesterday and I’m interested to see how the colors come together.  I have it all drawn up and diagramed with the colors, but I need to see it actually made to know if the color will really come together.  So stay tuned.