February 2014

February is here and has started with some lovely rain this morning. February can be one of those tricky month where we often see the hottest days of the year. On the other hand the sun has now moved north and when I get up at 5:30 in the morning it is dark.
The temperature is still revoltingly high and a fan is needed to be able to sleep at night. Quilting in this heat is one of those endeavours in stupid, but, this is what you do when you have an addiction. January saw us having the hottest days and going to pick up my child from school was often painful having to be in the extreme heat.

Today is Chinese New year and let us all welcome in the year of the horse. This too is a second attempt at all of those new year's resolutions that were made a month ago. But lets all eat something sweet to welcome in this new year.

I finished quilting the centre of the Dear Jane and now I am busy with the border. I have done 6 of the triangles so there is still a way to go.  In January I quilted 45 blocks and went from 50% complete to 66% complete.

With doing the border I am now starting to worry about the binding. I will have to soon make a decision as to what to use to bind the quilt. 

There are three contenders, firstly white to tie in with the rest of the quilt. Secondly polka dots are amusing my brain and thirdly we have stripes which when cut on the bias will make amazing chevrons. The forth option which have almost been eliminated is to take scraps and just make a long scrappy thing and use this to finish off the quilt. 


The other thing that I need to do is create a label for the quilt. I have been bad and not labelled any of my quilts so far. I think that I have spent more than 2 years stitching on this one makes it deserving of me putting my name on it. Does anyone label their quilts of is it just a narcissist thing to do? I do sometime wonder whether it is a good thing or a bad thing to make quilts. Will children enjoy having them one day or will they be a burden to look after and find space in their future homes. The other thing is will they just be turfed without a second thought. I suppose that is why you should just enjoy your quilts everyday as it really should not make a difference once you are no longer around. 

  I must say that doing a Dear Jane is a true test of fortitude and I must take my hat off to all the people who have made one in the past. The thing with taking on a project of this size is the amount of life that gets lived whilst sewing it. Oh well, let me get back to stitching. 

I have found the next thing to entertain myself on the computer and that is a 365 project challenge to take a photo once a day for a year. I think it will be a great way to see the year go by. If you join I would love to see your pictures.




Have a good one.