I’ve been craving some fast finishes lately. It’s partly a reaction to having a number of long-term quilts on the boil, and partly just post-holiday blues I suspect. It’s always hard to return to grey, cold days, after a taste of the sun and warmth on your skin. It’s also hard to return to budgeting and making pennies meet, after the fun of spending freely on holiday (five quilt shops in 6 days!!!). Of seeing the same four walls, after taking in new vistas every day.
It took my husband a week to settle back into work, but it’s taking me a bit longer.
I tried to move the purple quilt along, sewing a backing and basting it all together, but that wasn’t enough to bust me out of the quilting doldrums.
Next I took a piece of “cheater fabric” and attached some borders top and bottom, basted it together as well. I will gift this one as a lap quilt for my Mother for Christmas I suspect. But this still wasn’t enough, I needed more.
As a last resort I found my pile of 2 x 7 inch strips left over from the postage stamp quilt. I sewed them randomly into pairs, fours, eights and so on. From there into strips, then a quick quilt top. Daughter #2 has labelled it uncomfortably close to polar bear vomit, i.e. too garish, uncomfortable, cheap and chaotic. Sort of like junk food. Quick to make, but not comforting or nourishing for the soul.
I might make one more really quick quilt this week, using some fat quarters I got today from Spotlight. At four for $10, it seemed a good opportunity to get enough to make a babies floor mat. Not that anyone I know is pregnant yet!
I’m not sure how to get out of this funk, maybe I need another hobby, or another holiday. I wonder if I could hitch-hike my way to the International Quilt Festival, I know AirNZ flies directly to Houston now….anybody have room in a suitcase?
Linking up with lee at Freshly Pieced.
quilts across the aisle 
I love the “fast food” quilt. I like to use them in the harder wearing situations- picnic blanket, or extra covers for my kids watching movies, etc. They are fun and happy, but I am not so picky about them as I am about more planned out, precious quilts.
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The idea of using it as a picnic rug appealed, until I realised I probably needed a lightweight canvas as backing. So, its going to be a charity quilt, probably for Womens Refuge, since its getting to the busy time of the year for them. Hopefully it will help to distract a child from some of the harsher stuff they have witnessed.
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I love the fast food quilt, too, though I’d have to change the name, as I don’t love fast food! Having made a few of those scrappy strips myself I don’t think of them as quick, but they are fun.
I also really love the lively touch of turquoise in your purple quilt.
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Thanks, I have a soft spot for the purple quilt. Its going to a very special friend, but I might just miss it when its gone.
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