One of my favorite quilting bloggers is AmandaJean (aka Crazy Mom Quilts). Since I've been following her for the past couple of years, she's had tons of really fun-looking and inspiring quilt-alongs. So, when she announced her latest quilt-along where she was going to be doing one nine-patch block per day for 70 days, I thought, "Hey - I can do that!" So I threw my hat in the ring, too.
Well, since then, life has happened. We ended up going out of town for 10 days, then have had company at our house for the past 19 days. Let's add those up ... and we get 29 days of interruptions in my quilt-along! So I was reading AmandaJean's blog post today, and look what I saw:
Let's zoom in on that right-hand column:
That was seven days ago. In other words, I'm 39 days behind on my 70-day quilt-a-long. Yikes!!!!
I'm not a fast quilter. I have never made a quilt without a recipient in mind. I have a baby to care for and a house to keep in order. I need to spend my free time exercising and going grocery shopping. Trying to catch up on this quilt-along would be a little crazy at this point, right?
Well, I went up to my quilting closet and took a look at my measly excuse for a fabric stash and felt completely uninspired. I don't usually find anything to my liking at my local fabric shops, and who has the time to drive to the three corners of town and browse around anyway? So, I did the logical thing ...
... and ordered tons of beautiful, pre-washed, pre-cut fabric from
Stitch Simple so I can start making blocks! :o)
I first read about Stitch Simple
last April. Although I don't mind washing, pressing and cutting my fabric, the hand-quilting is my favorite part of making a quilt. The fabric prep, designing, and assembling are the necessary preparatory steps I have to take to get to the quilting. So, I'm letting
Stitch Simple do the fabric prep and
AmandaJean do the design. I'll just get to assemble and quilt this one, and I can't wait!
My blocks will be a bit bigger than
AmandaJean's plan calls for (I ordered pre-cut 3" x 3" squares for $0.11 each), and I'll have to do some extra sewing up-front since I'm not doing the strip piecing. But I think it will be worth it.
I am so relieved that I'm not only getting fun, inspiring fabric, but it will be 100% ready to be stitched together. I can literally take my box upstairs when it arrives and start sewing with zero prep time. Don't worry - I'll keep you posted on how things progress, but I'm ridiculously excited for the fabric and the quilt-a-long!
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SWEEEET! Can't wait to see what you're making!
Posted by: Sheri | 2009.08.27 at 12:57 PM