Sunday, November 20, 2011

The quilt blocks (almost ) finished

An inordinately busy October kept me from these pages for almost a month. First, my mom was here for cataract surgery for about three weeks of that month and, thankfully, all went well and she had a very nice visit.

Then, my husband and I drove to Boston for my 50th birthday. We took the opportunity to visit the Louisa May Alcott home (Orchard House) in Concord as part of my research for the book manuscript. I also worked at Harvard's Houghton Library and got to handle LMA's personal scrapbooks (her handwriting was almost illegible because of hand cramps!). There are many photos upcoming of that trip, which found us in Boston on the day that the Snow Storm of the Century hit.

Going on the fourth road trip of this year (my husband counted Chicago in February, Annapolis/Richmond in May, Canada in August and Boston in October, plus two airplane trips to Puerto Rico!) meant missing my quilting class on the day of my birthday so I was quite behind when I arrived early yesterday for a scheduled make-up class. But, as life will have it, the teacher's father had to have heart surgery in Columbus so she totally forgot (with reason) our appointment. After returning home late Friday night she had to go back yesterday because he had suffered some complications. I'm praying that he will be alright.

All was not lost in the class department, though, because the lady who arrived to volunteer to help at the shop is a consumate quilter and she was enthusiastic about helping me catch up. This meant that, although my "flying geese" have yet to be sewn together, I was able to make the "pinwheel" block and the special "applique" block for which the teachers left us a hastily hand-drawn pattern so some of my classmates are struggling with having it fit right over the square of the larger block below. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be a problem for me.

There is, of course, more to the quilt than these blocks (the blue background on the photo is only the carpet in one of our rooms where my husband took the photo) and still lots more work to be done (I think we'll run into three more classes and not just the two that we're supposed to have in December). But I'm very happy to be caught up with the rest of the class and ready to start the finishing touches for my third wall-hanging or table top quilt. There will be another full class starting in January and I am tempted to take it with an eye to getting to where I feel I've mastered the "beginning quilting" level. I guess that's the great thing about quilting, that you don't have to move grades until you're ready.

Meanwhile, I am working away at my book manuscript after a very busy start to the semester with advising and events I helped plan. I work best with deadlines so I've decided that I want to have at least two chapters fully finished by the end of this calendar year and the whole manuscript done by May so that I can only worry about class planning in the summer. I'm going to hold myself to that since the hardest thing about being on leave is that it's all up to me. Which is both good and bad.


Next up, photos of our trip to Boston and of the Storm of the Century. Stay tuned.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is going to be a lovely quilt! With what you've learned so far you'll be able to make almost any quilt you like. I'm excited for you to try hand appliqué. It's given me many peaceful hours.
Happy Thanksgiving!