habitat quilt top

I kept right on steamrolling and ended up with the herringbone portion of the top finished yesterday, and I ran out of [some unknown color of] gray at the same time. I have a bit of an instant-gratification problem when I am on a roll with a project, so I set out today to find substitute fabric (knowing full well that I would not find the same gray).

This is when pillowcases from your friendly cheap-o discount store saved the day. They are a deep gray-almost-wants-to-be-purple color. I also picked up a microfiber blanket, a favorite in our household, to use as the quilt back. Fuzzy, comfy, and cheap completely outweigh the boringness.

 

A few quick finishing pieces and I now have a completed quilt top! The entire quilt includes the herringbone piecing as well as the white and dark gray bands at the foot of the bed.

Here is a close-up of the herringbone piecing. The 'height' of the parallelograms vary from 2.5" to 4", and the width of the herringbone bands varies from 6" to 9".

 

Next purchase: batting :)

someone lit a fire!

(potential energy stored during break) + (me time associated with busy husband) + (inspirational goodness provided by Habitat)

=

amazing productivity

 

I am not sure if it was always this fast or if I am experiencing some sort of hyper-drive, but I darn-near have a quilt top.

 

[I may have to purchase more gray, went a little crazy with the size of the quilt] [but I don't remember what gray I bought to begin with] [[crap]]

Happy Monday :)

the good news is I still like to sew

The bad news is that it took several weeks to figure it out. That's the cool thing to do these days, right? Take a break from the thing you normally use to take a break?

First it was "well, the Webernets aren't working, so I guess I can't post."

That turned into "does that mean I don't need to make anything...? yes."

Then it was "yay! we get to go to Minnesota! clearly I can't pack the Singer"

After that I was saying "crap, we're moving back to Atlanta WHEN? I totally forgot. okay not really, but for real."

And finally, after moving, "everything is packed away so nicely in our new apartment. who, in their right minds, would disturb this kind of organizational perfection?"

I overcame that last question today. But I'll be honest, taking a break was nice. I literally did not read any blogs for a solid six weeks [eternity? depends on who you ask]. I still love them, but I found myself getting caught up in everyone else's projects, and I lost my good old[some-would-argue-young] self.  Sometimes technology can take over your life, and I'm guilty of letting that happen. So now I get to resurface, minus one data plan on my phone and a large handful of blogs I "read," in favor of really keeping up with my faves and having more time to be inspired by me.

With that fervor, I kicked back into gear by starting a new quilt today! I have had a fat-quarter set of Habitat on hand for the whole summer, burning a hole in my stash. Initially I wanted to do a simple diamond pattern (or rhombus, if you ask my mathy Sean). Clearly I stewed too long on that idea because on the drive back from MD, my diamond shape cutter found a precarious place above the speaker in our car, and over the course of a 12-hour drive, it formed a new 3D speaker shape. Sorry mom! (she gave it to me for Christmas).

But in the shadow of tragedy blossoms creativity (so true in a million ways in my life), so I started cutting today for what I am calling Herringbone Habitat.

I am particularly excited for this quilt because I am not using anyone else's pattern but my own made-up one [eh, could be a disaster, but we'll find out soon enough]. And Habitat is so random, yet so unified. This quilt is easily going to skyrocket to the favorites pile.

I sincerely hope you all enjoyed the end of summer. I will be back in sooner than 6 weeks, scout's honor.

M