Quilts and reservations
The quilting side of my creative life has thankfully been smooth sailing. Two baby quilts have been sent to their new homes, a third on the wall waiting patiently for me to spend a few days at my machine. I've made good progress on the Cornflower quilt, attaching rows in a manner that is actually pretty relaxing, but then wrangling a couple of rows is less futzy than all the rows, lol. I have twenty of ninety-four Star blocks made, I have a plan for abandoned Alexandria quilt blocks, which will free up two-inch hexagons so I can perhaps get back to that medallion style quilt in some future date. Future Me won't say if I will complete that quilt, but then she's also keeping quiet about the current state of my noveling existence.
But first, the quilts.... The photos above and right below this paragraph are actually the same quilt! This is the first time I've made a quilt purposefully reversible. I like how in the small square side the perimeter is about half-square sized, as I just added an addition row to the length and width, then very carefully centered the large square side on it, batting in between. I'd planned to machine quilt it, but how I basted it meant the straight lines ran into the ditch on the small square side, looking messy. Instead I hand-quilted it, and am very pleased with the results. I might try this again, but if so, I'd machine quilt it on the diagonal so there wouldn't be any issues with landing in the ditch. Fabrics are from Violet Craft's Fisherman's Bend collection, as well as coordinating Kona solids, also used in the quilt from the previous post. Large squares are 6.5", small are 3.5" before sewing.
I'm grateful to have those done, and the one still on the wall will be sorted throughout the coming week. I'm eager to throw something else on the wall, not sure what yet, which mirrors my writing. I'd been excited to start my next story, but after trashing the first chapter, I'm coming to the conclusion the whole idea needs to be shelved. When I don't wake up in the morning dying to write, I know something's amiss. Not sure if it's the entire series, in that I've mentally prepped myself to not release any of it until more books are written. Maybe that's an error, perhaps I need the impetus that spurred me to complete The Hawk, publishing it as I wrote (despite being scared shiteless that I might not finish it). I don't know, need to ponder it. But in the meantime....
Really, more distracting shinies? More novels from my past, and I glance at Past Me for any kind of assistance. She shrugs, can't honestly recall what inspired a book I did indeed write back in 2013, then shelved, not keen on continuing that story, which is SCREAMING for a sequel (at the very least). Instead I left it to simmer, then started The Hawk, but I did complete that tale. Part of my problem with the latest bunch of books is that while I love to write about people and their drama, I've, um, included aliens. And a nasty villain. And sci-fi elements that aren't truly part of my milieu. Now having said that, the story from 2013 is also sci-fi, but maybe I was more brave back then. I was still in my forties back then, dude! I was in a place in my life where time remained plentiful, my parents were alive, and I didn't have grandkids. 2024 is a LOT different.
In 2024 I'm nearly fifty-eight. I still love writing, but indie publishing has changed in that my stories are pretty much for me. And that's fine, but I still want to do justice to what I release, and I keenly recall being slightly terrified when I would publish another section of The Hawk, with plenty left of it to write. Maybe I'm so aware because I'm reading a few chapters most nights, very happy with it, but my goodness it's a long complex story, yet I just wrote and wrote and no aliens showed up, yay! There was plenty of magical realism going on, but only melodrama and families and no evil villains that I have to tame. I prefer drama emerging from the conditions, no serial killers or other psychotic jerks messing around with my characters. But I've certainly built one in my latest series, and placed him smack-dab in some futuristic galaxy, when all I really want to write are the impending love stories. So yeah, a conundrum. Reservations. Oh, and quilts!
I don't mean to be so whiny. I just want to write a book and be happy about it. And include some quilting in the writing, hehehe. It's nearly the middle of February, the best time of year for inside pastimes like spinning yarns and sewing cottons. But I'm not feeling the noveling love for my fictional WIP, neither am I certain that I'd do the right thing to a story eleven years from my past, but I'm having fun editing it. Does that count as writing, just faffing about with something that needs a sequel, but I don't know if I have the guts or patience or energy to write it? Arrrggghhhh.... It's hard when distractions are everywhere, too many books or unfinished chapters or halfway completed projects. Maybe it's aging, perhaps in pushing sixty I'm losing focus. I truly am not certain, nor do I want to pester Future Me because she won't tell me even if I ask nicely. She'll just shrug, then gesture toward my computer, as though one of these stories is the correct answer. Which is actually enough to know, the last thing I need is yet another book in progress.
Sigh. Well, at least I've gotten a little of the confusion off my chest. Not that this makes the path any clearer, but there is it. The life of a novelist is full of hoo-haa, not always do I get to foist it all upon my cast. Thankfully tomorrow is another day, we'll see what happens in the morning....
