Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Too much of a good thing isn't great!

With all respect to Mary Engelbreit, too much is just plain simply rather overwhelming. But as I've heard others say it does get easier to deal with the excess.

Several months later, some sales on ebay, some fabric shared with bee friends, and I'm still struggling with the hard truth that while I will not call myself a hoarder, I have way too much fabric for someone living in a patio home.

I think I mentioned at one time, making my crafting bucket list... so amongst the other things I'll share some other time here are 3 top priority items.

  1. Making a couple of small quilts for our daughter, and each of the grand kids. Now these are meant to be made from their baby clothes, and so since she is 6 and he is only a few months old,  hers at least should be well under way. All excuses aside, this last year hasn't found much time for actual sewing, except at quilt retreats. The last one I attended in October,  was a total disaster, as my sewing machine had needed a tuneup after June retreat. Because I wasn't sewing I forgot. I arrived with way more than several projects, and the sewing machine, went from bad to worse... 
  2.  A wedding quilt for both granddaughter and grandson. I'll be doing the 54 40 star variations (my favorite block), although the finished quilts will be quite different. I'll start posting some pics once, I can sew a few mega chunks together, big enough to get an idea. I have plenty of left over pieces from other quilts of blues and bluebonnets, so he'll get a reprise of the TX Two Step quilt, I first made almost 10 years ago. The very one that suggested my business name to me. Cotton Eyed Jo was a true statement... and if you could see the piles of this and that kind of fabric, you'd wonder why most of my more recent posts were about rug hooking.
  3. Livvie's quilt will have the same 54 40 block with a different 2nd block... a couple of possibilities, but the blocks will need to be the same on both sides to take care of quilting...
    Okay, well I finally gave up looking for the picture I wanted to add. This is a picture of Jenni and me on a hike up Cottonwood Pass in the last century. Around 1980  DH and I were camping with friends, and one of them took this picture. ©Dan Todden  Jenni in the backpack, me in my always wearing them Tevas...probably  a miracle we didn't tumble down the mountain side.
What things would you like to really craft before your untimely end? Considering my age, no one is likely to say, "so young to die" :) Which is a good thing... None of us know the number of our days.

1 comment:

Farm Girl said...

Hello Jo,
I read this yesterday, and thought about it all day yesterday. I suppose I would like to make more quilts, pieced ones. Only, I have this weird idea. My grandmother would make beautiful quilts using only the templates she made and I would like to make some quilts just doing it the old fashioned way and hand quilting them the way she did. her points always matched, her double wedding ring quilt was something to behold. It was a king size too. So I want to be a better everything, quilter, hooker and stitcher. I love that picture of you hiking. I have walked there too but not with a baby on my back. I like your list. I think it is always so good to have things to keep us going on. I hope you have a lovely weekend.