Sunshine! Mother, may I?

Good fortune is smiling on us today -

it's SUNNY!

I am going to celebrate by giving myself permission to lay out the last block-and-one-third for Row B!  Or, to at least get as much placed before the sun moves to the other side of the house.

Mother says: QUILT!

Stolen moments

After realizing the error I'd made in laying out the first couple dozen pieces, I had a hard time concentrating on much else until I made the necessary fix.  It didn't take long, but it was exasperating.

Of course, I couldn't stop with just making the quick changes and letting it go.  NOPE.  I stepped in and filled in some of the holes AND made a few adjustments here and there with the newest materials to aid me.

PROGRESS!  Can you see my original gaff now that it's been fixed?

And what's more - it pleases me no end that I am now only thirty-three pieces away from finishing this block.  From there, I am only 2.3 blocks away from completing Row B.  Be still my heart!

UPDATE: A-a-a-nd I have a pretty good start on B9

Only two-thirds left to find and place (with several of the new materials having to be cut to make it happen).

UPDATE: Now, looking at this photo days later, I can see an error I made in laying out this block.  I'm glad to catch it early on, otherwise I would be driving myself AB-SO-LUTELY nuts in about twenty or thirty more attempts at matching (or, probably more like five-to-ten pieces).

Can you see my boo-boo?

Oh yeah, and by the way

Yup, I did manage to configure and stitch 1,930.  Nineteen-point-three completed squares.......BOO-YAH!

It needed saying.  Thanks, I feel much better, now.

In truth

I managed to contain myself yesterday, while visiting three material stores. One was a big box, retail sewing store, which also sells crafts (so I think you know where I mean), but the other two stops were 'local quilt shops' that are not local to us...by any stretch of the imagination.

Luckily, Jean had to have her car serviced - and her dealership is in Lansing - so that meant: 'road trip'. She graciously allowed me to join her, and we had the usual gabfest-laugh-a-paloosa in spite of the early morning hour(s).  Following the time at the dealer, we joined one of her lovely daughters (and her beau) at a Lansing eatery known for their soup.  The wait for a table was forty-five minutes longer than we anticipated, so we were less game for poking around in stores after brunch, but we made it work.

Following a quick trip through World Market in East Lansing (the WM in Rochester closed years ago, and everyone here still misses it very much) we mosey'd over to Country Stitches (a favorite LQS, and a MUST if you're in the EL area) for a bit.  So much to look at, and so much fun, but it was overrun with little girls who were there for goodness knows what reason. They never sat in the classroom area long enough to get anything accomplished, and boy, were they an annoying bunch of bodies to shop around. I was there with a specific mission, so I was able to stay fairly well focused in the things I found/purchased.  Yes, I bought a little bit beyond the golds/yellows/ochre/rusts/cinnamons/ golden-oak/green-overcast-yellows/yellow-overcast-greens I was in search of, but was not as badly out of control as I really could have been....so pat me on the back.

In truth, I cashed a savings bond for this little foray, so I feel less guilt than normal, and I stayed under the limit enough so that I could stop in to A Quilter's Garden in Fenton on the way home. I had to check out their batik wall to see if there were any possible blenders I could pull into my palette for VGS.  And there were...so I did!  Again, I didn't go so overboard that I feel guilty, but I did pass my budgetary mark by a small bit - which I stole from the gas tank money.

All told, I bagged 35 new materials for the VGS palette, and I am a very happy camper. I even think I may have located a source for the perfect light grey to rework "Pink Lemonade"! But that will have to wait for a bit ($).

How was your Saturday?

Well, OK, then...I suppose

Never certain of why it is people do what they do (and I am not entirely certain those people I am referring to - i.e.; all people in general -  know any better the reasons that compel them in the instance of some actions), but in the specific case of Lee Eiseman, Executive Director with Pantone Color Institute, I am seriously doubting most of her 'color of the year' choices from 2007 forward.

It's not that I dislike purple, nor is it the fru-fru name they gave Color 2014 ("Radiant Orchid"), but seriously? Aren't we a little full of ourselves? They claim it's "a captivating harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones..."

You'll have to visit their website to read the copy the posted over the image (above), as it didn't copy over.

Looking at the image of the lovely orchid, I can see the purples of the petals and the more deeply-colored veins; the fuchsia of the center and the edging of off-white; I can even find a soft pink on a small section of the flower furthest to the rear.  I find it very hard to conceive how Pantone made the jump-to-light-speed decision to choose the color they did, claiming it's a mixture of the flower presented. And I further find it difficult to swallow naming it anything "Orchid".

Look, it's a pretty color, but it's hardly "orchid".

Time to step down, Ms. Eiseman.

Eighteen-thirty!

Boo-yah!  Take that!

1,830 down...14,668 to go.  Phwew.  See, it's the little milestones that are giving me the biggest thrills these days, and I will happily take my cheap ol' thrills where I can get them.  In (fairly) short order I will have row 2 (or, more commonly referred to as "Row B") finished, then I will immediately join A & B - just for the thrill of it.

What's more, in less than two complete blocks I will have joined two thousand pieces.  2,000 one-inch pieces!!  That's a lot, but way less than measurable over the entire project.  3,300 pieces would knock off a legitimate 20% - or, 1/5th - of the quilt.  Then I will rejoice like a mad woman.  Let's see, where will that land in the picture?  Well, that would mean I would have to have everything but the last 100-piece square block complete.

So there you go.  When I am through with Row C, I will have finished j-u-s-t over one-fifth of the whole quilt.  That's crazy!

1,730 +

Row B-7: The tip of the iceberg.  Now, only eight stinky pieces vex me.  

This square is kicking my butt.  Seriously.  Literally.

OK, so maybe not "literally," but you can consider my 'can' kicked.  There are still innumerable yellows to cut out - along with many thousands more of the same thus far - and I am still mad as ever to really want to get more of this quilt project sewn together.  I don't know if this quilt is more of a distraction from schoolwork, or if the classwork is a greater distraction from the quilt.  All I do know is I really just want to dive into it and work out the remainder of row B and move as quickly as possible through row C.  No more piecemeal work of stolen hours here and there - I want to devote some serious time to it!

If I can nail down the last of this square and get it stitched up today, the count will be 1,830.  Until then, it's more like 1,822.  Sheesh.

Oh, and trust me when I say the pieces that look way 'off' in B-7 truly are a better match in person.

Say it ain't so

[sigh]

Have you ever had one of those days?  One of those moments when you simply wanted to smack your own self between the eyes with something heavy?  Have you ever just regretted an absolute waste of time and effort after realizing something you had just finished (and felt a great sense of achievement over) - and spent over 6 hours working on - was all for naught?

SIX hours!  Six hours of daylight and electricity (for overhead lights)!  A waste.  All of it an absolute waste.

Oh my gosh, I am still smarting over my latest spate of idiocy.  I'll never recover the lost time, so I am hoping to get over it soon....but for now it still stings.

Ah, what did I do (you are probably wondering)?  Well, let me show you.

Oh, wait, I can't do that, either. 

My laptop - with the necessary software for editing photos - is not working.  Currently, I am living moment-to-moment on my son's little laptop...which has no photo-editing capabilities.  It has the internet - and that's about it.  I can write out homework assignments and have them ready for printing before I turn them in, but I can't do fun stuff.  I can look for work and upload my resume'...so, I guess that's a lot.  But what I can't do - what I'd like to do  - is...I'd love to show you what I spent hours cutting, matching, compiling, and readying for sewing, only to find I had already constructed it!!!

Aaaarrrgh!

You'll see what I mean in a few days (if my laptop can be fixed).  I promise.  You'll look at it and wonder: "Why did she do that?"  I know I did.

I still am.

[sigh]

Not so much

I did finish piecing together one 100-piece block, and I have one more laid out and ready to assemble - so I consider my goal 75% achieved! Hey, 3/4 is far better than nothing (or, in this case 50%).

AND I managed to pull out a huge assortment of yellow fabric from the stash - which took quite a bit of time. Yellow-into-gold, dirty-green yellow and gold-ish orange, school-bus-yellow (which is really some sort of yellow-orange), pale and vivid and smudgey and....well, you get the idea; yellow, y-e-l-l-o-w, YELLOW! Working into a portion of the top of VG's 'thing,' which is just the tip of the yellow iceberg. Once I begin the next row, I will require in the neighborhood of 60-to-68% of my yellow color palette for the bulk of this project. Each successive row of the next three will call for an ever-widening array of yellow, until finally working into a shadowy array of oranges, rusty browns, and dingy yellow overtones of greenish browns. That will ultimately finish off the 'item.'

Yikes!

Good thing I like color...and that I have a 100% color spectrum field of vision. I know this because I've been tested. Thank you, God, for the excellent vision You have given me.

What are you working on?