I love quilting chaos!

two boxes full of memories

My sewing room is a wreck!!  And I am so excited about it.  It's been a bit of time since I have been this engrossed in a project, far too long.

After I made my dad a memory quilt, my sister asked me to make one for my nephew.  I agreed, I was concerned.  Dad's quilt is really the first one I had made since having surgery on both of my hands.  I put together a few baby quilts, but those don't take much time and I didn't choose anything really taxing to my hands. I have been a little protective of them for a long time, too long. Was I ready to tackle a full quilt again?

prep time

all the leftovers waiting to be made into t-shirt yarn

I have been slowly starting to do all the prep work for just over a week. Trimming off the extra fabric, ironing on the almost 20 yards of fusible interfacing. This morning I went downstairs with my coffee and piles t-shirts and started cutting.  Cutting, cutting and cutting, it took 4 hours to trim them all to the size I needed to get started.  And staring at the piles I was a bit intimidated.

these scraps are headed to the compost pile

My sister had included a stack of the most beautiful shorts, I prepped them to be included also.  The quilt will have a bit of NASCAR also, as my sister also included a set of curtains from when he was younger. It has bits and pieces from when he was very young all the way to his upcoming graduation.

I took a quick break to fix us a nice little brunch.  Some brotchen, Nuremberg sausages and a fried egg.  It seemed a bit pricey when I ordered them.  But tasting Germany in my own kitchen, made it a bargain and then some.

Back to work I went.  Carefully trimming, cutting and measuring and trimming some more.  It took a bit of time for me to decide how big the blocks were going to be, but I decided to go with 13 x 17.  An odd size I admit, but it was the size of the biggest block that had nothing added to it.  The pile started to grow and the more I made, the more excited I got.  I kept telling myself one more block, one more, then I will stop.  Well one more, led to another, another and before I knew it 37 blocks were finished. 

a nice, neat stack of blocks waiting to be laid out

I should have had an idea that it was getting late, I don't have big windows in my sewing room, but I could see the purple haze of evening through the little ones I do have.  I was still very shocked to realize it was almost eight at night.  I had managed to work for almost 12 straight hours on the quilt, my back is reassuring me I did, I wish I had been able to keep going.

True I want to see what my creation looks like, but I think a bigger piece of it is that I want to quilt it!  I cannot wait!!

I might get a block or two done tomorrow, I'm not sure.  It's sweet hubby's birthday and we are throwing him a big birthday party!  And Monday and Tuesday I have to go to a retreat for work... hmmm maybe Wednesday... We will see...

How did you spend your day?  Did you get a chance to do what you wanted to no matter the cost?  Because I did!  My house is still cluttered, dishes need washed. My spirit needed to create, so I did!