This week was a roller coaster. I will preface this with, I am trying to not be as much of a perfectionist, and I think I strive to be exceptional (and with that comes unrealistic goals at times) because ultimately, I fear mediocrity. So sending my pattern out to just the proofreaders and reading all the feedback was not the most pleasant experience for me. But I am so very thankful for everyone that proofread my pattern. I have lots of feedback now to make it even better before the pattern testers try it out. I was making the second sample and I was overthinking the whole thing! Is this the right shades for the sample, does it match, is it going to look okay on the pattern, and worst of all is this ugly?! I really just needed to do something that didn't require too much thinking.
I had ordered a "Happy Box" from Sweetwater Fabric and it arrived this week. In the Happy Box I received, there was so much fabric: a Cookie Exchange Frivols, a Noteworthy mini charm pack, 5 1/2 yards of Holly's Tree Farm and Volume II lines of fabric, and a 2lb scrap bag of the Treehouse Club line. I love the Treehouse Club fabric line, it's so fun and colorful. The scrap bag contained so many pieces all that were approximately 13" long with widths from 1-9". I decided that I would "improv" a strip quilt and make 12.5" blocks for a picnic time outdoorsy quilt. I took 5 different prints of the fabric that I thought looked good together and just sewed them together, depending on the cut of the scrap there are some that are not straight, but I didn't mind. It's scrappy and I just needed to sew without thinking. I think the quilt top turned out great, and I still have quite a few scraps left that will end up in my scrap drawers for a future project.
The best part about this quilt are the lessons that I learned about myself. Sometimes you don't need to be perfect to make someone beautiful and sometimes you just need to sew something to make progress. This entire quilt top took me only a few hours over 2 days. It was nice to not have to constantly think about Pattern #101.
So the good news about all of this, my pattern should be launching in November, the 15th to be exact. I will be participating in a Sew Pro All-Stars Blog Hop that week and I will be launching the pattern. YAY! I'm so nervous but excited at the same time. The first sample is heading back my way from the longarm (Rhonda Walker from Olie&Evie was fantastic and got it done super fast! I can't thank her enough!). The second sample should be finished this week and will be machine quilted by myself so I can get both photographed in time for the launch. I realized I don't have many photos to share with the "secret" sewing that I'm doing, but November 15th is not too far away!
The follow ups from last week's accountability:
I finished reading all the stories of the different quilter's inspirations in "You Inspire Me to Quilt" by Cheryl Arkison. The book is pretty amazing. It gives so many different perspectives from other quilters on how they gather their inspiration and design some beautiful quilts. It's an great reality check that no one just wakes up each day and poops rainbows and unicorns. It's a process that takes inspiration to a design that could take days up to years. Some of the standout inspiration designs are the bacon and the time clock quilt. Yes, bacon inspired a quilt and it looks awesome. The time clock is something that I want to make with my anniversary date on it. It also just so happens that next year is our second anniversary that happens to be a "cotton" gift year.
I didn't actually attend the guild meeting last week. I will need to wait to make more quilty friends in the area. See the semi-panic attack about the second sample quilt for the pattern above and you can probably guess I stayed home to work on it rather than meet other quilters. I did however sign up to go to the Winter Quiltfest in Logan, UT in January. Now if only I could find someone that also wants to go and needs a roommate! If anyone is interested in going and doesn't have anyone to stay with, I'd love to have a roommate. There are some really awesome classes this year with Helen Robinson from Sew Kind of Wonderful as the featured teacher. I am so excited to be able to attend!
Block 10 of the Cozy Christmas quilt was finished. I think this block has been the best one yet where everything lined up perfectly! That is always so exciting that pins are not trying to over work to get things to line up correctly. I can't believe that there are only 2 more blocks, this fall has been going by so quickly!
10/25-10/31 Weekly Goal:
Available time for quilting:
Wednesday and Thursday night, all day Sunday, and Monday night
Projects I want to work on:
Cozy Christmas
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Goals for the Projects:
Cozy Christmas: Complete Block 11
Powered by Quilting Patterns: Send pattern to pattern testers by Friday! Bind the first sample and finish the second sample.