A year of mostly slow sewing

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The latest from a growing collection of Lavender Quilt blocks.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! My husband and I have traveled to Nevada to spend the holiday with our son. We're not having a traditional meal, but I realized recently that it's been several years since we shared the holiday with a plethora of kin, and doing something differently is kind of our style. We will be having pie for dessert, kind of a fave of my better half, and I'll treat myself not only with gluten but some accompanying dairy in the ice cream. It's a holiday, time to splurge a little. :)

I'm also going to splurge in retail, lol; I'm ordering a Mandolin quilt kit from Tales of Cloth; Jodi Godfrey has several amazing EPP quilt kits on offer for this weekend, and while I've just finished a Mandolin quilt, another beckons strongly. And I've decided to make 2023 a year of slow stitching, concentrating not only on getting a Mandolin quilt underway, but to focus mainly on paper piecing. Not exclusively, I don't think my hands could take that much of a workout, but if I don't attempt this now, my fingers certainly won't thank me later. I can make out Future Me's slight grimace, while Past Me giggles wildly; you should have done this a decade ago, Past Me smirks. But a decade ago I wasn't even into quilting, merely up to my neck in novels. Slow stitching won't hamper the writing, or so I hope. It will certainly tame the output of quilts, harnessing my attention on an altered level of detail. And hopefully put the brakes on fabric purchasing sprees. Prints go a LONG WAY when paper piecing.

I am quite excited about this endeavor; I have the Lavender quilt and Cornflower underway, and I might join in Jodi's Hexie Harvest quilt-a-long, although not in an official manner. When she released her Hexie Handbook a few years back, I purchased the PDF, sewing about a third of the blocks just for fun using scraps. I tucked away those blocks, and might add to them if I need a break from the above listed projects. I love how Jodi has added triangles to her Hexie Harvest quilt, accentuating the varied designs, and I have plenty of large triangles to use. My hexie blocks are larger than Jodi's; I've employed two-inch papers and will use four-inch triangles. So many options for a year packed with threads and needles and most of that not associated with my machine.

Having gushed about EPP, a few machine sewn quilts will see the light of day, including a baby quilt for friends of my eldest, and perhaps a few other baby quilts in the making, hehehe! I have a stack of autumnal scraps itching to be turned into coasters or even some new fall placemats, not to mention six twelve-inch blocks that need some solid borders that I want to fashion into a set of anniversary placemats for my hubby and myself. Our thirty-fifth anniversary is a few months away, that was when I wanted to have those ready. My sewing table is clear, but oh my goodness there are piles of scraps and EPP blocks elsewhere waiting to be sorted, dude! Perhaps if I do that while waiting for the Mandolin quilt to arrive, I will be all set to dive into 2023 not only with a clean sewing room but fresh energy and plenty of prints of all sizes waiting to be turned into basted paper piece glory.

Hopefully Future Me won't be too frightened by all this hand-sewing (nonsense, I can hear in her tremulous voice) hopefulness; while I'll imbibe in some naughty gluten this afternoon, I have basically excised it from my diet and wow, my entire body feels better! And as I said, my age won't improve the conditions of my hands, so if I don't try this now, the odds are poor of a better year to attempt it. I'm rather grateful to even consider something of this magnitude, indicative of what this day is all about; I'm thankful for more than I can mention here, my relative health and that of my entire family, save a few beloveds fighting cancer and other ailments. While California isn't getting any rain currently, sunny skies allowed us to travel eastward to see our son. I have a novel to wrap up when I return home, a plot twist for a new idea (again Future Me shakes her head; don't you have enough books already underway?), and faith that permits me to accept these gifts with the greatest of joys. Don't think I do any of these things within my own strength. All I sew and write and everything in between is in concordance with God's grace. May that grace fill you with all peace and exuberance, and again Happy Thanksgiving!

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