there's no place like gnome.

This is my 100th post on my internship blog!  Woot!  (“woot” has become one of my favorite written interjections of late.  I woot a lot.)  What better subject for this monumental post than to share a finished quilt with you!

In the past five months or so, this nine-patch has been started, then put away for a few weeks.  Pulled out then put away.  It’s been a sporadic journey but the journey is finally complete!

I’m trying to not dwell on the things that aren’t perfect and the lessons I learned in the process of – what I would consider to be – my first “real” quilt.  There are many aspects/steps that I can improve upon in my future quilting adventures.  I consider it my first “real” quilt because the top was much more time-consuming/intense than previous strips of fabric or simple square, and because it’s finished with a real binding.  While mistakes are many, I’m still pretty darn proud of the result!  

I fell in love with the hand-sewing of the binding, the final step in the quilt construction.  I loved being able to cuddle up under the work-in-progress while sewing away with my needle and brown thread.  

I spent a lot of quality time with the quilt yesterday after my coworkers sent me home for the day.  There may have been a minor Lindsay-almost-blacked-out episode in the office and they thought it best for me to rest for the day.  After hours of successful napping, I took the day as my opportunity to rest up while quilting.  I seem to be fine now; cause of episode unknown.  

The one last step to take in this quilt’s beginning is to wash it.  I love washing a quilt for the first time, pulling it out of the dryer, and feeling the difference – how the quilt becomes a quilt.  It’s no longer just three layers sewn together; it feels different.  Like the back, the batting, and the eclectic top have always belonged together.  

To a completed quilt – woot!

To the 100th posting on my blog – woot!

First order of business – a trip to the gym and a solid twenty minute run (hey, a big accomplishment for me!) alongside lifting.  It was a good workout, not complete without a conversation with an older congregation member about how it’s important to get the heart pumping.  True story.

After a shower, it was time for the quilt top and I to meet again, hopefully with less frustration than last Saturday when I threw my seam ripper aside in frustration.  We’ve become friends again, the nine-patch and I, after I successfully have now completed the top!  Four months in progress and I finally feel like I’ve gotten somewhere.  Next, I need to decide what to do with the back; I’m ready to say nothing too exciting so I can move onto quilting it.

While sewing, I found Field of Dreams on tv.  It has been years since I’ve seen the movie; we had the $5 VHS tape from McDonalds and remember watching it with my dad growing up.  It was a good reminder of my Luther College days – Iowa is heaven-like.  Our family also had the $5 McDonalds tape of Back to the Future; we know where that got me.  (Obsession.) 

Quilt top: Complete.  I will leave it hanging on my wall for the next few hours so I can stare at it and feel accomplished.  Now it’s coffee and cookie time.  I baked cookies last night to mail out to a few people; it was a new blog recipe find.  There are three kinds of chocolate in the cookies … intense.  I also used whole-wheat flour which throws the texture off a bit but they’re still tasty. 

To begin our story, there were many different patterns of flannel fabric; bright colors and monkeys and bananas.  They were cut into five inch squares and sewn together.

Ta da!  Lindsay’s first baby quilt was completed.  Not perfect but lovely all the same.

Our story continues last Wednesday morning when Gavin James was welcomed into the world, born to my friends, Krissy and Mat.  

Do Day is the name for the Monday of the month in which the church ladies gather in the basement of the church and sew, cut, pin, and tie quilts to send to Lutheran World Relief.  Last year they sent nearly 100 quilts to the non-profit which then boxes them up and sends them to people in need around the globe.  

I make a point to attend do-day each month, if it’s possible, and tie a few quilt with them.  I came this month with my camera, to be able to share do-day with you, my faithful blog readers.  Because it’s church and because they’re chruch ladies, there is always coffee and goodies to go along with it.  I missed coffee time this past month but when I got there, one of the Dorothys insisted that I get coffee and something to eat.  This is the same Dorothy who insists that I drink coffee and eat something in between church services on Sundays.  She will literally get up from the table, fill my cup, and bring a treat of some kind and set it in front of me.  And you can’t tell forceful old ladies ‘no.’

Being snowed in gave me the perfect opportunity to pull out the fabric and the quilt squares again. I still have ten quilt squares left to cut and create but I’m getting bored with connecting my three inch squares in patches of nine. I want to start putting it all together … thus I began to lay out the squares. Add some white borders and a little less carpet, a preview of what my quilt might look like …

I have no idea what I could or would do with such a skill but these fabric yo-yo pieces are certainly fun. Apparently a style from the 1930 and 1940s, I saw hundreds of these sewn together for a coverlet on a bed at a coworker’s house, a project by his grandmother. Creative wheels in my head began turning …

I researched, discovered a tutorial, and happened to have a bag of fun fabrics already cut into circles. (Convenient? I call it fate.) I began playing, creating a yo-yo myself. To create a yo-yo, it’s all hand-stitching; a very mobile project – something I would love to do if I were a passenger in a car for hours. (Not that I have any such trip lined up in the near future.)

For now, the idea will remain in the back of my mind, perhaps for a future project or quilt inspiration. As the yo-yo sits on top of my gospel of Luke commentary, I’m reminded that there is no time for sewing tonight or tomorrow or probably this week at all. I have a sermon to prepare for a care center service tomorrow afternoon and then two sermons plus a children’s sermon to prepare for the week ahead … a very busy most-wonderful-time-of-the-year.