Wrap Up and What's Ahead

Feeling like I’ve spent a lot of time this past week chasing my tail!  

Yes – most of it is my own doing with three quilt deadlines converging in a week’s time. DH has been great this week – extra supportive & helpful.  It’s particularly hard on the animals – I’m gone all day & then preoccupied in the evening. I promised to make it up to them this coming weekend! Lots of extra hugs, brushing & treats – especially Milk Bones for Hobbes!   

Petal Pinwheels-Prairie Style was uploaded to the MQG for competition.  I received a confirmation yesterday afternoon that WICKED…WALKING! made it safely to Cherrywood Fabrics for judging. 

And my better half, hand delivered my Granthams, Gardens and Grounds to the LQS on the last day for entries to be received for the show.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of it done as it was raining yesterday morning.  I hope to take pictures of it at the show tomorrow.

In between work and starting & finishing those three quilts, I managed to take time out to ride – twice.  That was really quite a luxury of time as the barn is over an hour away from home so it’s not just a matter of ‘popping over to the barn’ for a quick ride. It’s a good half day adventure – usually in the middle of the day.  I think those breaks actually helped me manage the projects better.  I knew exactly what needed to be done & exactly how much time I had to complete them all.

Strangely enough, I don’t feel burnt out creatively.  I have a powerful itch to get in to the blue & green batik stash and PLAY!   The New Quilt from Old Favorites – 9 Patch design has been sketched for a while but I am going to try to let this one grow organically as I play with colors. 

I'm not going in with a color coded, cut list!  I am more interested in how the stash works as a painter’s palette.  

Oh and there is going to be a contrasting POP of color in this one – that is a planned element but the fabrics for that aren’t decided either - just a different part of the batik stash.

The 2015 Sauder Village Challenge is also niggling in the back of my brain.  I looked at the fabrics and may have discovered a hole in the color range.  

I haven’t had a chance to check & see if the Peppered Cottons have a lighter blue shade but that’s next on the list.  Better to look for it now than scurrying to try to find it later!

I’ll never in a million years understand the creative process in my brain.  Sometimes I can’t get the design going until it’s almost crunch time. But then other times, the design idea comes right away. And still other times, it’s a true growth/refinement process where one thing just leads to another and then another. 

The hard thing is that I never know which process it will be for which project.