But then I threw on two more quilts on my list of things to make, one for my nephew and one for his new wife, and I think they should be delivered by Christmas since they are wedding gifts and the wedding was early September...
Now, I have the fabric and the patterns in mind for their blankets, so that should be no problem. But I feel compelled to finish this one for the teacher, first. And I have all the blocks done, even. Took some time, I miscalculated greatly by not realizing a few things with this pattern. First, I decided to use a bunch of fabrics I had pulled together over time from my stash -- blacks, grays, creams, reds. What I didn't consider is how much of each fabric you need, and that you need more of the fabric as you work your way out on the block, because the strips are longer. So I had some fat quarters I wanted to use, and for one set I had *just enough* fabric, and for the others -- not enough. Quick change of fabric mid-way through piecing 36 blocks -- never a good thing.
One important consideration with this block is that the inner most fabric in the square and the outer most fabric should have a lot of contrast, because they are going to be touching. Duh. Didn't see this coming, and I had two reds against each other and that did not work. I had to go fabric shopping (something I normally love) to find just the right fabric to make this work (can't you just feel the other three quilts on my list of things to do drifting further and further into the background?). It took four stores to find the right fabric, and I even went to the local (very expensive and not friendly) quilt shop. Finding the right fabric was tough because the other fabrics had some white, some cream/gold, some gray -- and it had to be predominantly black but not too dark. Impossible task or what? But I found it -- a sort of viney-with-little-leaves black fabric that's kind of mottled in the background with gray and hints of cream. Perfect.
Which brings me back to the three quilts on the back burner. I find that thinking about patterns for those quilts helps me not think about how to tackle this quilt. But I feel too guilty to start one of the others with these 36 blocks staring me in the face.
End result? No quilting getting done.
But...I have been tackling some projects for our upcoming Project Linus craft fair. I've been embroidering for pillows, and I tackled baby booties using up fleece scraps. I've done this before -- I try every pattern I can find, most don't turn out, I settle on one pattern, make a few pair, then swear I'm done with baby booties forever. Till the next craft fair. The booties are so darn cute. Even if they don't stay on a baby's feet, they are still cute for decoration, don't you think?