Perspective
First, I'd like to thank everyone that gave me their thoughts on how to get over my quilter's block. I think Pattern 103 is just going to go on hold for a little bit as I work through it. I apologize in advance if this post gets to be too personal. Last Wednesday, one of my good friends I'd fallen out of touch with in the past few years committed suicide. I found out Thursday via a Facebook post of a mutual friend, and this has since altered my entire perspective on life and subsequently quilting. A couple things on where my head is at now:
- If you have thoughts of self-harm or can't trust being around yourself, reach out to the Association for the Preservation of Suicide--www.afps.org--or go to the emergency room. Please seek help!
- Life is much too short.
- I need to keep better in touch with the people who matter.
- I never thought I'd want to see my high school yearbooks so badly before. (Thanks to my mom, who is sending them in the mail to me)
- You should enjoy life as much as possible (See point about how life is short).
- Quilting should be fun, and I should work on fun stuff.
So I decided that I wanted to make a Mario quilt from Super Mario Brothers. I used a fusible grid that is pretty much a super light fusible interfacing that has grid lines printed on them to show where you put your squares of fabric. I took enough photos to write a tutorial for next week. Anyway, he turned out super cute! I was a little concerned when I did the color matching that some of the colors wouldn't look right, but he is pretty perfect! Now to put on a border to stabilize the quilt top, do some quilting, and bind it!
This week's Quilters Planner Block was Hourglass at Sunset By Kim Soper of Leland Ave Studios. I picked out my high school colors to make the block given the nostalgic mood this week. Purple and Gold, go Eagles!
After that, I decided I really needed to finish a quilt. Seeing as I thought I'd work on the Modern Heritage Block of the Month quilt last week, I started digging in since I was only 3 months behind plus a redo month. This is what the quilt layout looked like before I started making blocks this week. It's missing Month 5, 7, 8, and 9.
I completed the Month 5 blocks as you may recognize from my paper piecing tutorial a few weeks ago. At the time, I only made the one block for the tutorial and left the other two untouched.
These are month 7's blocks. These are 6" finished blocks, so the pieces are fairly small. I think this quilt has taught me I really like big blocks!
5/30-6/6 Weekly Goal:
Available time for quilting:
Friday PM, Saturday and Sunday afternoon
Projects I want to work on:
Quilter's Planner Block
Modern Heritage BOM
Mario
Show and Tell Tote
Goals for the Projects:
Quilters Planner Block: Complete this week's Block
Modern Heritage BOM: Finish Month's 8 and 9 and assemble quilt
Mario: Add borders, quilt, and bind.
Show and Tell Tote: Make one. (I ordered interfacing, it'll get here Thursday. I can't wait!)
So sorry to hear about your friend. Life is definitely short. Your Mario quilt top is cute and your blocks are beautiful!
I am so sorry to hear about your friend. I hope you can find comfort in the days to come as you work through your emotions, and I hope your quilting provides a good outlet for you as well. I’ll be praying for you and your friend’s family.
First – I want to say that I’m really sorry for the loss of your high school friend. Suicide has a way of making us all feel like we should have seen such a thing coming and subsequently should have been able to prevent it. The truth is, there are so many factors and variables. What’s more – few that need professional help actually reach for it. Nonetheless, sharing a link wherever we can just might offer someone the chance they need, exactly when they’re open to reaching for it. Your Mario Block – I’ll share it with my boys. It’s perfectly perfect! Lastly – your Modern Heritage Blocks look wonderful. I’m looking so forward to getting mine quilted but it will have to wait a couple of months until our Long Arm arrives! Cheers 🙂