Holidays keeping on for crazy quilters

A group of five crazy quilters will continue Holiday Happenings through June. This time, it is a traditional round robin. 

Each of us created a 12-inch square block. That’s mine. 

Then, we each send it to 1 person who embellishes one-quarter of the block. The next month, the blocks move on. In the last rotation, your own block comes home. 

I like to see how someone else chooses embellishments and stitches. 

Pursuing Project Quilting 12.1 results in purse

It's been a tough week that had me on the floor twice. Neither time was I ROTFL. Both times are related to quilting.

The week started with a bang as I hit the floor when the chair at my sewing machine broke into several pieces. As I went down, my head hit the cutting table behind me, one leg got tangled under the sewing machine, and the rest of my body found new ways to bend.

Three wrongs

Did I mention I was sewing after midnight? That I was rushing to finish six crazy quilt blocks for an Under the Sea round robin that needed to be in the mail Jan. 4, 2021? I was getting up to go press the finished blocks when the 50-year-old chair ended its life.(Photos of those Crazy Quilting blocks in another post).

I'm lucky the piles of material and things waiting to get into their new homes did not land on me. I'm not so lucky that most of the furniture in the sewing room is on wheels. That makes it hard to grab onto something and pull yourself up. I'm not so lucky that my husband can be a sound sleeper sometimes. But he did finally here my call and we found a way to get me off the floor.

Six blocks soon made their way to the first stitcher. I also vowed to work harder on getting the sewing room and myself into shape. Also to choose the right chair, which is not a frequently used antique previously repaired.

Hunting for fabric at home

Later Monday, I turned back to the latest Project Quilting challenge. On Sunday Persimon Dreams started Season 12. The rules stayed the same - one week to create a project that is finished and includes one of three things: patchwork, applique or 3 layers stitched together by hand or machine.

 

The twist for the first week focused on using Pantone's Color of the Year for 2021 which actually is two colors Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. (Illuminating is a 25-cent word for a shade of yellow.)

Throughout the week, I looked for the jelly roll of gray and white I bought for a quilt project never started while putting things away. Then I started looking for any gray fabric. Luckily, I remembered that would be in a box labeled landscape. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of that box remains unknown. It could be in the garage. It could be in the living room. Heck, it might even be in the sewing room.

A new search

I gave up that search. Finally, I found fat quarters of gray speckled fabric with some Row by Row projects.

Yellow was easy to find as I had been collecting that for a star to go on my 2020 Christmas tree project. 

Then, I remembered my daughter had given me needles for Christmas so I decided to put my Christmas presents away.

My husband was taking a sick grandson home and then going to urgent care. I was making good progress putting things away Then, I turned and caught a slipper on a curled up rug.

I clearly remember the sound of my head hitting a very solid buffet, then a chair and then the wood floor. I don't remember when my hand started pressing my head. I was smart enough to return my hand there when I saw how bloody my hand was. 

I called my husband home and we headed to the nearby emergency room when we couldn't get the bleeding to stop. Hours later, the scalp was cleaned and a liquid band-aid was put on. I choose the liquid stuff. Stitches would require cutting some hair; staples would mean I couldn't complete a set of MRIs planned for Monday.

Inspiration

The ER trip used up a lot of time. I knew I needed to scale back my Project Quilting plan. But the trip reminded me I needed a small purse with pockets for my ID and medical card, sun glasses, reading glasses and my I-phone.That idea became my Project Quilting 12.1 project.

The purse includes: 

• Three long pockets for a pen, phone and glasses. One pocket included three layers, with the batting some packing material made of recycled denim. I quilted it by hand.
•  Two pockets that are the perfect size for the medical card, the ID and a $1 or $10. These are placed high enough that I can easily find the cards when requested.
• One pocket to hold a notebook.  

Panning plain

Of course, plain is never good enough for me. I bound the sides with yellow quilt binding that also made a good handle. Some ric rack, a gray scrap turned into a flower with a yellow embroidered center and a scrap of yellow to accent the bottom was good enough. Afterall, there was a deadline. I supposed I could have used some of the remaining 45 minutes until deadline for beading but I stopped. I checked later - people entered after me. That means 228 finished this week's challenge.

Barbie bonus

My granddaughter will enjoy one of my mistakes. The first time I made the pockets for my IDs I made the seams about 0.75 inches. That meant when I turned the fabric pouches out they were too small to hide the cards. They are, however, the perfect size for pillows for Barbie and Ken dolls.

A new batting

I will use the packing material made of recycled denim to stuff the pillows. That might be a better use for the recycled denim. Or maybe it will work on projects that I machine quilt. When hand quilting it, my needle often hit hard spot.

I am ready for a quiet week of hand stitching.