This is what I've been playing with this week -- a crumb and string quilt mosaic, original pattern. (Yes, the non-parallel lines are part of the design!  It will look much more pulled-together when it's finished.  I promise!) 

It's been very mindless and tons of fun, especially going through my string/crumb bag and thinking, "Oh, I remember this fabric!  I used it in my daughter's quilt 14 years ago!" 

I'm having to spend today putting borders on one of my quilt show quilts so I can take it to the quilter on Wednesday.  HATE putting on  borders.  I have about six quilt tops that need them, and I keep procrastinating.  I should probably do a border maratho.  You know.  Kind of like the desensitization process for people with phobias.  Because if I made myself do all six quilt borders in one week, I would no longer have border phobia, right?

(Except...  Not gonna happen.  I hate borders.  Have I  mentioned that?)   

I am not a joiner.  Joining groups with regular meeting times just isn't in  my introvert personality, with a few exceptions, namely 1) Bell Choir, and, since last summer, 2) my church charity quilt group.

I've realized that getting together with people is a lot more fun for introverts when we're actually, y'know, DOING something.  Like making music.  Or quilts.

This is our first charity quilt, made by the gang of us of mostly donated fabrics.  It's a Disapearing Nine Patch, which was more fun to make that it looked when I saw the pattern online.  Each of us made three or four blocks, the group leader put it together, we all tied it, et voilà!  A quilt, soon bound for a good home. 

Amazing how much more you can accomplish together than you can working alone.  

Happy New Year, fellow quilters. 

I have been merrily quilting along.  If by "merrily quilting along," we mean "Trying to create a perfect quilt for an auction when I'm actually not very good at that perfectionist thing." 

My little church quilt group (there are about ten of us) have signed on to create two baby/lap quilts (45 x 60) for an auction to benefit homeless women.  (The organization is Sophia Way here in Seattle.)  Both quilts have to be done by Feb. 10.  Which shouldn't be a problem, since they're just simple framed nine-patches alternating with snowball blocks.

 And since I'm one of the more experienced quilters (note that I did not say "best") I volunteered to cut the fabric and sew the strips for strip piecing, to make it easy for the other quilters to make the blocks the same size. 

Uh-huh. 

Whipped through the first set of strips, cut enough for a block, and...  Yeah.  Even though I SWEAR the strips were all the right size, and the seams were a quarter inch, the block was a quarter inch too big.  So I went back to the parts that measured off and re-sewed a few seams, and... 

Now it's too small.  I'm starting to identify with Goldilocks. 

So, after avoiding the quilt all week, I'm back at it and being a perfectionist, cutting pieces from only the strips that measure perfect, and resewing all the ones that don't.  (Have I mentioned that perfectionism does NOT come naturally to me?)

Goal is to have all the strips sewn and cut perfectly into little block kits for both quilts by meeting time at 10 on Saturday.  I'll post photos when I find my camera. 

Caritas, caritas, caritas, rah rah rah.  :-)

Oh, and while we're here, check out these lovely charity quilts from Del Jeanne!  She sent me the photos before the new year.  I actually added them to the site a few weeks back, but I'm only now getting around to pointing you in that direction.  I especially love this Woven Hearts quilt!