Ulterior everything

Unbelieveably enough, I spent the majority of the week (since the last post) not quilting (herein lies an ulterior motive). That's right, NOT quilting.

[collective gasp]

"Why? Why would you choose to stay away from the one thing you can do...you love to do?"

Calm down, I hear you and I understand your astonished bewilderment. If it makes you feel any better, I did touch material this week. I reveled in my scattered stash and played with the colors. Took stock and made promises to myself (ulterior promises) to stay away from acquiring anything further for the forseeable future.

I cleaned up quite a bit and put away, sorted, folded, re-folded, color-coded and stacked all of the loose bits here and there, and consolidated a literal mountain of fat quarters, cut yardage, leftovers, scraps and stash leavings, which had commandeered living space over the last year.

Yes, I've reclaimed the library - and found an upholstered chair in there!

Boy, do I need to get the sewing 'room' re-established!

For the better part of the last 16 months, I have planned, daydreamed, schemed, plotted, and salivated over reorganizing and rearranging the area I've claimed for sewing space (ulterior motive). Even going so far as to move the portable wall and add a larger, more stable table to work on.

I even went to the extreme of beginning the cleaning process necessary to maneuver everything else around the reorg just to make the whole dream a reality! Then....I ran out of steam.

Why? Oh, I don't know. A million reasons (or just one really apt reason).

It's that darned "l" word.

I suppose I just need someone to give me a really solid, painful kick in the bottomside to get me moving in the right direction again.

But, besides the reason(s) keeping me from accomplishing what it is I want (and need) to do, there are the excuses; and we all know excuses are far worse than reasons - trumped up or legitimate. So this week, I decided to kick myself in the derriere and get moving.

Baby steps I grant you, but movement forward is better than no movement at all, right?

Now that I can see the mountain of material that needs putting away - back into its proper space - I am more determined than ever to attack the sewing area reorg (which means I would have to completely overhaul the entire lower level to make it happen - another ulterior motive)!

As soon as I return from my coming Grandma-mission, I intend to dive in and get it done - lock, stock, and barrel!

I hear you - and no...that wasn't an excuse, but it is an ulterior threat!

Update: quilt-@zz-kicking-thing

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:

As of 7:29 PM, I have ten completed hexes quilted today! Only fourteen remaining to stencil and stitch and then it's on to the first of the two borders. Stay tuned -- that is, if you're keeping track.

Original post, earlier in the day -- 6 down!

Four more marked, and......

GO!

For my own benefit

Because the blogger gods are being turd-ish, and I am not able to post a link along the margin of my page, I am setting the link to an ongoing 'challenge' here.

Kicking some major quilt @zz

Dear diary,

Today, I did pass the halfway mark with the hexes. Happiness.

Tomorrow...who knows.

20 of 48 'down'

Still have the lion's share of hexes to quilt, then the borders. Can't tell you how much I am looking forward to moving on to the borders!

Today my plans are to keep chipping away at the hexes, hopefully whittling the to-do portion down to less than half. Tall order, but I feel up to it today. The weather is fine, and I am knuckling down.

Time

It is taking nearly as long to get the design stenciled on as it is to quilt each section, and this heat is not helping at all.

I am so drained after 30 minutes of hoisting the quilt and maneuvering it into position under the needle, straightening and smoothing and cajoling just to have a handle on it for guiding it to and fro, that I want to walk away from it until this heat breaks - but I know that is a bad idea. I cannot afford to lose the lead time I have for getting this particular quilt finished. I am ahead of schedule and I want to stay there!

The girls are as angst-y and fertummelt with the weather situation as I, but they refuse to head to the lower level for some relief during the heat of the day. They lie scattered around the room, ready to pounce onto the quilt should I walk away for a bathroom break or to refill my water glass.

If I were a smart cookie, I would forgo the stitching and get the lower level ready to work in and then move us lock-stock-and-barrel to the cooler area!

I am apparently not a smart cookie, and in truth, I am actually feeling more like a low average Twinkie right about now....maybe even an underachieving King Don.

Maybe I should just go wash dishes or do some laundry and spend some sweaty time away from the quilt. Probably would be better in the long run for the quilt, eh?

First stitches are in!

May have to pull them out and re-do them after it's all said and done, but this train only runs downhill from here on out!

The camel-colored thread was a better choice than a brown. Thanks, Barb. ; )

Two months to the day

To. The. Day!

I began the Ocean Waves in April - the beginning of April - while I was struggling with those two classes and studying like a fiend. Wasn't paying enough attention to the math portion of the quilt making process, and managed to put together a lovely set of mismatched-in-size hexes with the central square.

They were perfectly pointed and stitched together, but darn it all if they weren't a hugely wrong size for the center square they surrounded!

I lost a lot of time ripping out all of those seams, reworking the math and re-cutting those pieces, because I hadn't enough of the material for a couple of those fabric choices to cut new triangles! And it wasn't as if I could go out and buy more of the central square material, either. Some of those fowl fabrics were hard to come by in the first place; but the whole truth (or the greater portion of it) was that I hadn't the funds to do any more shopping....so I was sunk unless I could make the changes work and simply 'adjust' everything I already had cut.

Usually my way to cope with stress is to sit and sew - fairly mindless once you get into a rhythm...and usually fairly harmless, too. I can relax and ruminate, unwind a bit, and then get back to whatever problem it might be that I needed to get back to and conquer with a better attitude - and a game plan of some sort.

Well, since it was the sewing that was vexxing me, I really had a mountain of poo to shovel through.

I ended up re-sizing a tremendous amount of triangles by trimming off 1/8" from three sides of those already cut triangles - hundreds and HUNDREDS of them. And if you're thinking to yourself: "Of course she cut off the excess from three sides of the triangles - they only have three sides!" Think again!

If you're a real quilter [wink] you'll know there are five face cuts on a triangle - the two extra being at the two non-right-angle points.

Anyhow, I am digressing - of course.

I began the quilt initially on the fourth of April, but after discovering my error, and having to regroup, I put it aside until the 14th, and began the sewing anew with all proper-sized pieces at the ready! Today is the 14th of June, and I have the quilt sandwiched and pin-basted, READY FOR THE QUILTING PROCESS!! Two months to the day - and it feels good.

I, of course, will keep you posted on the quilting.

Tee hee, now I can begin to work on the commissioned turquoise and purple string quilt!

The borders are on...

...and the top is finished! FINI!!

Thought I had made a drastic error in sewing together the long strip components of the border (5 strips per side - three of them less than an inch finished), and was about ready to cry, then set it on fire. Turned out it wasn't a drastic mistake so much as a REALLY close call.

Mitered the corners this morning (yes, all five strips), and now I am trying to assemble the back so that I can get this monster stretched and basted...today!

Yup. I am on a mission - and so is Flop! She wants to be the first to sleep on the new quilt.