The Best I Can Do

Three quilts waited for me this week, layered and basted. The sewing table was cleared (well, cleared enough), but my calendar was not. This was one of those weeks when I had to accept what I accomplished as the best I could do, because life got in the way of quilting.

 

The good news is, I finished a gift quilt.

 

 

This will go to one of my brother’s grandsons. Here is the back.

 

 

The quilt for my brother’s second grandson is next on the stack to be quilted. Here is the back for it.

 

 

The third quilt is the Challenge project. It is much smaller, but will require some embellishment. Lucky for me, I found a new bead shop.

 

 

Yes, I know, I probably have beads just like this somewhere in the sewing room, but I think finding the new bead store was my reward for not grumbling when I had to spend a day in an unfamiliar city for family matters. Sometimes, the best you can do is to take the bead in the hand and ignore the bead in the bin.

 

 

The Surface of Infinity, Wired

The most amazing thing happened to my Challenge Project – it told me it didn’t want beads. I’ve never had a project that refused beads before. Perhaps it was tired of being fussed over. First I had to wire its tail to make a Mobius strip.

Beading wire works well

 

I had considered satin stitching the edges in lieu of binding, but that didn’t seem enough when I finished the wiring, so I bound the quilt with a sheer ribbon.

Gauze ribbon is a great binding for small projects

 

 

The result was exactly what I wanted. You really can travel both sides of the loop without crossing the edges.

The finished project

 

 

Since I was in the mood for handwork, I finished my cross-stitch kit. Well, I say finished but what I really mean is I adapted the pattern (because I can never quite count right) and kept adding embroidery and beads until it seemed like a good place to end.

Spider and bat button

 

I managed to get one more project off the pile, which was a pillow made from elephant fabric for my daughter.

It seems an appropriate comment on my life in the studio – never forgetting that my goal is to reduce the piles before they start creating their own gravity wells.

 

 

Charms for Removing Obstacles

I brought out a panel of Ganesh, a project I’m working on with friends. One of Ganesh’s attributes, so I’ve read, is that he is the one to clear away obstacles. As you can see from the panel, the first obstacle is going to be making this panel straight enough to add some borders.

I’ve been told you can sew a quilt into submission, iron it into submission, or quilt it into submission. We’ll see what works with this little critter.

As I was thinking of solving problems, I started thinking of all the little charms and totems I’ve used in the past to guarantee good luck. I realized I have all sorts of brick-a-brack that could be used as charms, like these little carved animals:

This is supposed to be an armadillo. Don’t ask me why it has red eyes. The next animal should be more obvious.

These little guys have been sitting on my sewing room shelf so long I’ve forgotten when I acquired them or why. I suspect they were gifts, and since I still like them quite a lot the gift was successful even if I’ve forgotten who the giver was.

I do remember when I acquired my own personal herd of elephants:

These tablecloth weights leaped off the shelf and into my shopping basket years ago. The children were little and I envisioned many picnics with dangling elephants. Well, we had the picnics, but always on the ground, never on a table. My little herd is still as bright and shiny as the day they came home. So perhaps the good luck was for them – to stay intact and together.

I’ve been staring at the wonky Ganesh panel for some time, and finally called for help. My friend came up with an idea that will probably work, and so I’ll perform the very best charm to ensure good luck – I’ll get to work and soldier on until the obstacle is removed.