Piecing together many parts

Plotting out an EPP corner now, piecing together story ideas later.

Over four years ago I began a Mandolin Quilt, a Jodi Godfrey pattern. It wasn't the kind of quilt that needed to be immediately finished, which was GREAT in that instead it became the kind of quilt requiring a slow simmer, tucked away safely until time for it to emerge. Which is NOW, lol, as it is spread out over my work table. I'm down to carefully basting the corner blocks so when I take out papers and cut threads the seam allowances aren't sewn to the adjoining shapes, ahem. (Been there, ripped out those errant stitches....) I do one corner at a time, then sew the block as per my usual evening hand-stitching. Playoff baseball and the last pre-season Warriors basketball game will be the soundtrack for tonight as perhaps by the end of this month another EPP quilt is completed.

Not that I'll be bored when it's done; other paper piecing projects are waiting, in addition to a Honeycomb Stars Quilt, pattern by Rachel Hauser, that awaits my attention. I was going to work on that this morning, but first I need to baste shapes, so instead I sat back at my computer, HAHA, to write this post. I've spent the last two mornings reading over the last book of my current series, and that's been a JOY! Not only in that it's in very good shape but for the sheer pleasure of reading. Rarely do I peruse my past novels, but a few have a strong claim on my heart and this series is certainly one of them. But edits are an early-ish activity, I do like myself a routine. Hand-sewing at night, other than basting fussy shapes, sewing late morning/afternoon. The garden shrieks for my attention, and yeah, I'll get to it. But I'm an indoor girl at heart, good thing we live where theoretically the weather nudges one toward interior pastimes.

Which leads to me denote another yesterday activity; I signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month, which starts on November first. That was a spur of the moment action, mostly taken not because I'll need help with the word count (or hopefully I won't), but because I sure could use a kick in the backside to just pick an idea, then get my butt in the chair and.... Working on the Mandolin Quilt has been a similar endeavor; these last corner blocks are futzy, requiring lots of on the table, off the table, back on the table kinds of attention. Yet until I invest the necessary time, that quilt will just dwell in a tote for.... For longer than it should, let me just say. The same goes for novel plots; unless I write them, they're filling up my brain and goodness knows I need EVERY spare cell to get done what needs doing. Yeah, I can scribble notes endlessly, but until a book becomes some sort of virtual document, it swirls in my head, dumping off to the side precious thoughts that have their own right to bestir my intellect. LOL! Again the quilting bumps into the writing as though they are long lost siblings. One is plainly visible (even if shoved under the table in a plastic tote), the other so solitary but screaming just as loudly as an unfinished blanket. My ears ring, probably due to recent days spent at the machine, quilting coasters, or it is a bevy of story lines hollering for their moment in the sun? Despite using earplugs and noise-cancelling headphones whenever I sew by machine, the ringing persists, although it will fade in another week or less. But those stories so wanting to be told, new ideas as well as ancient notions, ahhh! In a couple of weeks I'll give one a go. In the meantime....

Quilts to finish and maybe to start, dead garden plants to pull, the usual laundry list of laundry and other household chores, and plotting. Not to take over the world or begin a new paper-pieced project, but the kind of scheming that gets no one in hot water, especially myself. I need to dream up some characterizations, fleshing out names with distinguishing markers as real to me as paper shapes that by the end of this day will be actual fabric additions to a quilt meant to express deep love, gratefulness for life, and the magic of future days. I make quilts like I write books, to learn something new and pass along the blessings I've received, one paper piece or piece of paper at a time....