WIP for the New Year

I can’t believe I’m still working on this. No, it’s not the Christmas quilt, although that is still very much in play.  It’s the Autumn Quilt.

Since I started collecting fabrics for this oh, 8 or 9 years ago, and started cutting and sewing this quilt 2 years ago, it’s no wonder that I let it sit for a while after getting it back from the quilter as I couldn’t figure out what to bind it in.  You know we all hunger and thirst over the cute bindings that Red Pepper puts on her quilts, but sometimes it’s best not to over think this quilting thing and just move forward.  This is a plaid that was in the quilt, spliced up with a couple of other prints, as I didn’t have enough of the plaid.

I don’t know why, but I love the autumn colors.  Living in LA, I get autumn about NOW, in January, when the liquid ambers turn maple-like colors.  I went looking for quotes about autumn to find this quilt’s title, and all of them were about  the fall that they have on the Eastern seaboard, or New England or mid-western areas of the country–so romantic about leaves and color and the “twilight of the year” and death and harvest and so on.  I found a quote I like, but I’m still letting it mull over in my mind.

I mean, I can’t just call this “Autumn Quilt,” now can I?

And this is where I am on the pillow shams for my wonky star Christmas quilt.  I decided to make a normal star, as they are 16″ finished, slap on some fabric on the top and bottom to get it to equal the size of a pillow sham: 20″ by 26.”

I want a flange around the outside edge, so I cut about another 100 2-1/2″ squares, and sewed them together in strips.

So now they look like this.  I stopped because I’d taken the quilt over to the quilter, and gave her the red/green thread I’d purchased at Superior Threads when I’d gone through there at Christmastime.

I stopped because I had to get the syllabus and the course calendar and the expanded course calendar done and sent to the school copy center, and while I was at it, I sent over vats and barrels of more things to the copy center, trying to prep up for the first few weeks of school, which starts next week.  But it was oh-so-nice to not have to create those things from scratch–to be able to find them on the computer and send them over with minor alterations.

I may actually get more quilting done this semester than last, given the fact that I’m teaching a course I’ve taught before.  And that is a very good thing.

And lastly, I had a lovely surprise from a fellow quilter: she heart-attacked my door on my birthday, which was this past week.  I’ve never been heart-attacked before, so I laughed and took a picture to remind me forever.  Thank you Lisa!  I had other lovely gifts to celebrate that day from other friends and family, phone calls from my children and some friends.  A good birthday, for sure.

And then, just to remind me that I’m no spring chicken anymore, my back went into spasms the next day and I’ve been wincing, whining and moaning a good girl and not complained once about it.  Like all things, this too will pass.

Hope you are all getting your new year off to a good start with reacquainting yourself with Works in Progress.  Head back over to Lee’s at Freshly Pieced and see what others are doing.