March Mayhem

Can you believe that it is March already?

We have already had two New Years and the winter Olympics.  Phew!

Summer is really running away from here. The sun is rising an hour later and setting half an hour earlier. The temperature is still very high at midday, but, first thing in the morning it has started to be a bit chilly. Yay. The heat of summer can be a bit overwhelming. This cannot be compared to the arctic vortex version of

overwhelming.

The birds are sleeping in and I really appreciate them not making a racket at 3:30 in the morning. They say that birds chirp at the crack of dawn as the pre-dawn hours are the quietest part of the day; I think they make noise then as they are little fluttery jerks that don’t like me sleeping for too long.

I am finding doing the border of the Dear Jane quilt quite a challenge. There is a point in every quilt where the fun is gone and strength of character is tested. A Dear Jane has a cyclic repetition of this event. I found it on each of the steps of creating the blocks, stitching the blocks together and now with the quilting of it, have hit a wall at which time only the end goal can motivate you to complete the task. 

I have found keeping statistics on my progress has allowed me to compete against a fictitious time line which makes sure that this quilt does not become a 10 year task. I do find that blogging about it has helped. I find that comments given can make me feel as if I am not lost in this task all by myself. I also find that reading other people confessions about the quilt make me feel a little less guilty about not thinking this amazing quilt is just a walk in the park. I have now been making quilts for 5 years and my stitching does look like it is being done by a 5 years old. J I look at the even stitches of some quilters and can only hope that in years to come, I could achieve the same.

I ordered and received some bias binding makers as well as the clips that I will try when I am doing the binding. I still have not made up my mind as to what the binding fabric will be. There are at least two months stitching before I will get to the point of binding, so I am allowing my brain to have this as a niggling problem to worry about when not fully engaged.  

March may be a slow progress month as my eldest daughter is getting married. My sister who lives at the coast will be flying up for the wedding and will be visiting. This weekend I will be constructing little boxes for my daughter, so this will probably take up most of my quilting time. The other thing which I am being way too relaxed about is not having organised an outfit to wear to the wedding. I must go to the shops. I just find, if it is a toss-up between quilting and shopping, the former always wins. There are still 15 days to go, so that is plenty of time. If need be I will sew something myself.

I have been thinking what to quilt next. Well I do have the cathedral window wall hanging I want to make and thereafter I think I am going to allow myself a month or two of doing small projects. I think I may make a supply of Christmas presents, such as place-mats and mug holders. Maybe I can fall into the trap of trying to make the amazing things that I have seen on Pinterest. Should they turn out not to be as good as the originals, I can join the amusing line of pictures of what it should have looked like and what I produced. This sounds good now, but, let‘s see when the reality of not having a major project turns up.

Hope everyone has an amazing March and remember only 3 weeks until Spring/Autumn.

Have a good one.