quilting day

Today I started working on my Christmas gifts. I'm making quilted placemats for my family. Need to make 36 at this point, plus a couple other quilted items.

In January, my local independent fabric store had a private, by invitation only, sale. It was a great sale… 45% off of everything in the store.

Since I was on the invitation list, I came up with a simple pattern for placemats, figured out how much fabric I needed, and bought it all at a huge discount.

A few days ago, I realized that I simply did not want to make these placemats in the pattern I’d designed. It was boring!

So I started searching the internet for patterns that might work. There are a boatload of websites that provide free quilt block patterns. Several of those websites have over a thousand free patterns available.

Found something I liked, figured out if I had enough fabric for this pattern, and started cutting this morning.

Ended up cutting:

Light blue speckle fabric:
144 – 2.5 inch squares
72 – 2.5 inch by 4.5 inch rectangles
72 – 2.5 inch by 6.5 inch rectangles

Medium blue with multi-colored squares fabric:
72 – 2.5 inch by 10.5 inch rectangles
72 – 1.25 inch by 14.5 inch rectangles

Dark multi-colored print fabric:
72 – 2.5 inch by 4.5 inch rectangles
72 – 2.5 inch by 6.5 inch rectangles

Green print:
36 – 2.5 inch squares

It takes some serious time to get all that cut! But… I was able to start sewing also. I got part of the fabrics sewn together and then decided I needed to see one of the placemats completed before going further.

And it’s good that I completed one first. I wasn’t certain how it would look with the border I added to the 10 inch block pattern… but I like it!

I had opportunity to go to KC’s house today to sew with her, but I decided that would be too much work. Oh, KC isn’t work. It’s just that I’d have to pack my sewing machine and all the supplies into the appropriate cases, load up the car, drive 40 minutes to her house, unload it all, sew for a few hours and then pack it all back up, load the car, drive 40 minutes home and unload it all again.

Have done this before and it’s been fun. But… this weekend was about rest and relax time. That just felt like too much work. KC totally understands that concept since she's still recovering from her surgery.

I know I spent the day working on this project, but I puttered at it most of the day. Stopped to read for a while, spent time chatting with my sweet husband about his trip to Chehalis yesterday, looked the train pictures he took, etc.

Besides, quilting is such a stress buster for me!

I’m not quite as refreshed as I’d hoped to be, but am feeling much better than I was on Friday. Tonight will be early bedtime so I’m ready to work tomorrow.

… may there be mercy on our rest.