Quilting Diary

Three weeks ago, Barbara Brackman wrote on her blog about sewing diaries from the 18th and 19th centuries. How pleasant to find women from 100-150 years ago who love fabric much like I do. For almost fifteen years I have been talking to myself in the pages of my own quilt diaries. It is fun to “think out loud” when planning a new quilt or inventorying my UFO’s or muddying through life’s issues. Looking back at my older entries, there are times when I listed every project in progress with the hope that its length would convince me to stop adding to it and “focus” my energy, times when I gloried in a particularly productive period and finished quilt after quilt and times when I didn’t mention quilting at all. Life can be shocking sometimes. Those times I just wrote whatever came out. It is enlightening to look at myself years after some of those shocking moments and see that life does, indeed, go on.

Most of the time, I write about quilting. I paste fabrics I am using and fabrics I just like. I plan blocks and tops. I audition colors. I write about quilts I admire and lament I’ll never be as good as those quilters. And then I paste in more fabrics and realize I quilt because I love it and I quilt to satisfy myself. My quilt diaries pale in comparison to the sewing diaries depicted on Barbara Brackman's blog but, hey, mine aren't 150 years old. It's fun to see how my fabric and quilt tastes have changed over the years. Although, after looking at the old sewing diaries, I think I could take all of their fabrics and make a stunning quilt from them today.

Do any of you keep quilt diaries? I would love to have a peek inside of yours if you want to share.

I have been getting a little stitching done so I thought I'd include a couple of "process" photos. I saw a fragment of an old Ohio Star and decided to reproduce it in cradle size. Here's a shot of the blocks done so far. I prefer the blue print on the right so I am waiting for more to come via mail order. It is available for just $4.50/yard at Whittles Fabrics!

And the fabrics below are bits of another mini of the month. That's the program I am doing with Temecula Quilt Co. Those little pinwheels are pretty small and there are 14 of them in the top. That's the part that slowed me down. I am happy to report that I did finish the top late last week.