Couldn't leave town...

...without a trip to my favorite quilt shop! I'm trying (honest!) not to buy anything new, but these actually went with something I have in my stash and well, I have some little girls who begged for quilts before they went back home.

The pink-on-pink is flannel, and will make for a mighty cozy backing, I think. Throw some pink polka dots into the mix, and I think it'll be perfect for this one...

...or this one...

...or this one...

...or maybe this one...

...this one...

...or this one. It's going to be hard to decide!

How far off is Christmas?

Vacation wind-down...

It's almost time to leave my northern Michigan getaway.

Moonrise over the lake

The boat cover has been de-pooped (I don't know what those gulls are eating, but it ain't pretty), and the only things left on the dock are pine cones, blown down by last night's storm.

The house echoes with the giggles and screams of six little girls, and the vaccuum keeps gagging on funky-shaped rubber bands, Barbie stickers and pony tail holders. The refrigerator has been emptied of gallons of ice cream and mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders and macaroni salad. Squashed blueberries stain the deck, and chubby chipmunks huddle on the fenceposts, eyeing dropped potato chips, kernels of corn and sandwich crusts.

All in all, it was a typical noisy, very busy ten days, with side trips to Mackinac and boat trips and several trips into town to the grocery store. Not very relaxing, but that's what I leave these last couple days for, hanging out here after the crowd has departed to drink in the last days of summer, breathe the pine-laden air, and contemplate the long drive back to Chicago.

Big sigh.

I'm already looking forward to next year.

Livin' the island life...

Mackinac Island, that is.

No cars, just bikes, or these guys to take you around town.

See you when I get back!

Channeling my energy...

I'm making progress on "Spare Change," eagerly trying to get it done so I can move on to something else.

This kind of quilting doesn't go very fast, even it if is fairly mindless. I've done it many times before, in varying widths from really loose on one of my first quilts way back in 2004 to kind of close to mighty tight, which took FOR. EVER.  This one's medium density (for me), with lines no more than three-eighths of an inch apart.

I call it "Katekwiltzing," but Jacquie calls it "organic line quilting," which is probably more appropriate and not quite as self-centered. Coincidentally, she posted on her approach to this last week. Her explanation is very clear, but I have a couple things to add. Lessons learned the hard way:

• Avoid weaving back and forth across vertical seams -- it tends to make the seams "stand up" and look jagged.
• Use low-loft cotton batting! Unless lumpy is the look you're going for, polyester tends to be too spongy for this application.
• Also, this is definitely not the time to use any kind of fusible batting! Because this quilting compresses the layers so much, everything shifts as you quilt from the middle out toward the edges. What happens to the insides of your PB&J when you press down on the bread? Same thing happens here. I usually pin and repin every five to eight inches to adjust for creep. If your quilt sandwich is fused, you'll end up having to heat it up and readjust the back and front several times to get rid of the ripples, which is messy and a pain in the butt and not worth the time. You'll end up pinning in the end, anyway, so just suck it up and pin in the first place.
• Lay the quilt out every six to eight inches to gauge your progress. It's very easy to get those lines leaning to one side, and very difficult to tell just how much they're leaning when you're sitting at your machine. You really need to keep perspective (literally and figuratively) and catch any weirdness before it's too late to fix.

That's just a few more thoughts -- I hope you're inspired to give it a try!

Maybe organic line quilting can be the new stippling?

Lucky me!

I won a giveaway of this gorgeous Clermont Farms jelly roll over at Glenn's blog!

He offered a giveaway up to celebrate having his quilted tote bag tutorial featured over at the Moda Bake Shop last week.

Photo from yarn + needle

Not sure if that's what I'll make with it, but I can't wait to work with this roll! "Sultry" may just have to wait!

Thanks, Glenn, for such a great giveaway -- and thanks even more for picking me!

One down, 65 to go...

These strips had been in my monster UFO pile for at least three years (if not longer), the black and whites leftovers from another project finished and long gone. I'm not sure what the original plan was for them, or if there even was one, so I banned the cat to the spare bedroom and played around until I got a layout I was happy with.

I'm calling it "Spare Change."

"Spare Change" hanging in my window -- and Archie hiding behind

I don't know what stalled this effort in the first place (a new jelly roll, another flash of an idea, a new deadline...it doesn't take much), and my heart definitely wasn't in it when Practical Self forced me to come back to it last week -- but I'm coming around and actually like how this turned out.

It feels soooooo good to get it out of its plastic bag and on its way to becoming a finished project! So good, in fact, that I may take on another UFO when this is done!

But don't hold me to it -- that "Sultry" jelly roll is still calling to me, and it's getting louder.

Giving in to practicality...

This past weekend while rummaging through my stash, I pulled out this adorable "Sultry" jelly roll I bought on vacation last summer. I set it on my sewing table to just look at it in all its pink and greeny goodness, and my mind started racing at the possibilities it held for a new project.

"Jelly Roll at Bedside." Can you tell I'm into non-fiction this summer?

It's a weird feeling to describe, but I'm sure you know it -- there's a lightness, and excitement as those ideas start flowing, rising like bubbles in a champagne glass. Pencil hits paper, sketches take shape, and in your head you envision the cutting, piecing, the backing, the perfect (or near-perfect, in my case) quilting on it, and see the final product fresh from the dryer, or maybe even being unwrapped to oohs and aahs by its recipient on Christmas morning.

The whole experience leaves you a little giddy, tipsy on creative juice -- and slightly out of touch with reality.

You think "If I start cutting right now, I can crank the top out this afternoon, baste it tomorrow and have it bound by next Tuesday!" And in a perfect world, you might. But those creative juices blind you to the 57 other things you need to do by next Tuesday, and you lose total sight of the project in progress and any other impediments to successful completion, like work and laundry and weedy gardens.

Sound familiar?

I was about twenty minutes into sketching what might have been the greatest quilt ever when the juice wore off and I began to mentally slap myself around a little for even entertaining the thought of starting something new. Who am I kidding? Don't I already have enough on my plate? Don't I have a whole mess of unfinished projects that need attention? Am I going to let the UFO's take over or am I going to try to finish some of them for once?

I hate it when my practical self surfaces and sounds an awful lot like my mother.

Alas, Practical Self was right. I really didn't need to start something new with so much unfinished. Big sigh.

So I closed my sketchbook and calmly, regretfully placed those cute, girly pink fabrics back in the bin they came out of and turned to my UFO pile to work on something from there instead. I narrowed it down to three projects in varying stages of completion, and then chose the one that held the most promise that it might actually become a finished quilt.

This bundle of strips held the most appeal. It was also the easiest of the three choices, so there's a good chance of success.

Don't worry, I'll come back to that jelly roll someday. I just need to do this to get Practical Self off my back for a while.

But I gotta tell you, this isn't helping my motivation very much: