The spiky free-motion quilted project I mentioned last week is complete!  And just in time for a rainy, rainy day.

This is another 1600 quilt, like the Domestic Bliss one I made earlier this spring, but I actually completed this quilt top first, at our Winter Sewing Retreat.  So I think this one is probably a smidge smaller than the Domestic Bliss, primarily because as I was sewing the long seams on this one, the strips got a little twisted and I may have been more enthusiastic than I needed to be as I was hacking cutting the ends.  Still: lovely.  The keen of eye will notice that the strips go all the way from one side to the other here–I didn’t cut off the first 18″ at the end of the first strip, and clearly that makes a giant impact.  The colors here are what makes it fun, though.  It’s a Silent Film jelly roll from Robert Kaufman, all the greys and blacks and sort-of-not-quite-whites from their Kona cottons.

The back is all Kona cerise, with a chunk of grey dots that I randomly found in my stash.  This color really is so perfect–I have to thank Diana at the shop for giving me the idea, especially since it’s going to be smashing with the hot pink four-poster in our teen’s room.  She doesn’t know this is going to be hers yet, which actually made asking her to stand out in the rain holding it up a little bit funny. To me, anyway.  Is that wrong?

One of the many great things about these jelly roll quilts is that they’re such a breeze to stitch up that I don’t mind using them to experiment with my quilting stitches a bit.  I really like the idea of marrying the quilt design to the patchwork design, but I think the temptation to just use a meandering free-motion stitch or a straight-line stitch with every quilt is pretty strong.  So I’m trying to push myself more to be thoughtful about which quilting designs I use and how those interact with the quilt top to make a pleasing whole.  I’m certainly not all the way there yet, but having some larger projects where I feel like I can play a bit with the quilting stitches but won’t feel as though I’ve “ruined” it if I don’t love the quilting design is helping me learn better what effect the quilting can have on the quilt as a whole–a gestalt, if you will.

This spiky pattern seemed like such a cool way to off-set the black-and-grey-ness of the jelly roll, and I cannot get over how much I love it in the cerise thread across the body of the quilt.  I liked it OK before, when it was just the quilt top–I mean, the greys were pretty cool, and kinda chic.  But once the stitch pattern started to assert itself and really POP against the background of these colors, I loooooved the whole quilt so much more. And that’s what I think I’m reaching for: getting to where I feel as though the quilting step isn’t just a trial to be gotten through so that I can enjoy the fabric or the patchwork, but that it’s an integral and exciting part of the process of creating a quilt, and that each of the bits stands alone PLUS working together to make a cohesive and alluring finished product.

Along those same lines, the binding here isn’t the solid cerise I’d been planning, but is a bit of Anna Maria‘s Loulouthi that I’d been hoarding.  And I’m over the hoarding–use ALL the fabric, I say!  I like that it doesn’t quite perfectly match, that it’s unexpected, and that it really adds something soft and comforting to the colors of the quilt top.

Off to run this through the dryer and then snuggle under it while it’s still warm.  Hope your garden is getting the rain it needs!

So, it’s 11 am on Tuesday. And I sort of lazily think about the rest of my week. I’m mulling over the classes I have to teach on Tuesday and Thursday, and then I wonder: What am I doing Wednesday night again?

GASP.

I am attending a very, very large social event with my husband and massive numbers of older men in his profession. No pressure or anything. Also: NO DRESS.

I had planned to make something to wear, and had it on the calendar. And then I stacked some things on top of the calendar, and moved the stack to a stool in the corner and avoided going through the stack for a while, and now there I was: 36 hours to go time and nothing to wear.

So I did what we do when we sew: I got sewing. Boo-yah.

This is the same silk I used to make my Burda dress, but in a different colorway (I think that one’s “spice” and this one’s “poppy,” or something like that). The bodice is a McCall’s and the skirt is a vintage-look Vogue. Lining on the bodice is that wonderful Ambience rayon that I heard about from Amanda, and lining on the skirt is a lustrous poly china silk that I got on mega-sale.

The bodice took the most time, but was totally worth it. It’s actually a bodice with an overbodice–the pleated portion is separate, and has a full bodice underneath, for modesty. I love the whole overbodice thing, but wish I’d avoided the princess seaming in the underbodice. I also could have made it a size smaller. When you wait until the last minute, you don’t have time for last minute adjustments. Because you’re still putting in a hem 30 minutes before the car pulls out of the driveway. Just sayin’.

I love the fullness of the skirt, and didn’t even miss the crinoline I didn’t have time to go buy. What I did miss is the pockets I didn’t put in because I was worried I needed the extra 30 minutes to finish sewing. Which I did, but still. Pockets in a formal rock.

Hem: hot mess. There, I said it. I decided to reduce an inch from the hem, so rather than re-cutting all the pieces, I used the serger to take off the bottom inch while finishing the edge. Then, rather than easing out the fullness, I put in a super narrow hem by turning the serged edge under and stitching close to the stitches. Lazy, but it got the job done. The lining is even worse: I serged an extra two inches there, and left it undone. Which kinda stinks, because I meant I didn’t want to show off the yummy lime green-ness of it, which contrasted so strongly with the plaid in such a fabulous way.

I say all these things for a reason: generally, I recommend very strongly that we never apologize for our work. In fact, Stitch by Stitch Power Phrase #3 is “Thanks, it turned out really well.” We tend to point out flaws where other people don’t see flaws, and undercut the well-earned praise we ought to allow ourselves to accept. Shame on us. I’m making a point of sharing the flaws in this dress, though, because I think when a lot of projects–mine included–are blogged, only their best parts are pointed out, and it creates this illusion that there are some who sew perfectly every time and that YOU will never be as cool/perfect/talented/awesome. Totally not true. This dress looked great, and other than my forgetting to calculate my ridiculously short waist into the pattern, no one who was at this event of 400+ professionals ever knew that the hem was bootleg or that the lining was wonky. In fact, I got boatloads of compliments on my imperfect dress–which I accepted and was grateful for. I knew it wasn’t perfect. I also knew that if I’d worked to make it perfect, I would have missed out on a fancy party with my handsome husband in a tux where we got to have grown-up conversations and remember why we fell in love. And there is no way I would ever trade that for a flawless hem, y’all. No way.

Go. Sew. Be bold, and own your mistakes. They’re hidden from view, and are part of becoming better at what you’re doing. And most of the time, no one will ever notice. Not even your husband, when he holds your coat and tells you you’re beautiful.

I was initially inspired both by John and Sherry’s penny tile, but it was really this image found through Pinterest that sealed the deal:I adore penny tile, but was worried that in our mid-century mod house it would read too cottagey, and I wanted to avoid that.  But seeing the image above, I got a really modern, clean vibe and thought it would be great in our kitchen.  Which worked out, because until it was installed, I didn’t realize that you can actually see it from nearly every door and pass-by opening in the entire main floor.  Which could have been a complete disaster if this didn’t work out, so: whew!

We had some lovely Lithuanians come over and installed the tile for us, because as deeply as I believe in DIY, I don’t for a second believe that you’re obligated to DIY everything–and that sometimes, the peace of mind of having a couple of professionals do it while you work on your needle-turn applique blocks is worth every penny you’re spending.

This is what greeted them when they arrived Saturday morning:

If you recall, the entire kitchen was country blue, with wallpaper and dark, dark brown cabinets.  The cabinets are 60% of the way to completion (don’t judge me), and the new counters are, of course, amazing.  But the backsplash wasn’t even primed (why waste the paint?) and the wallpaper is soooo not my color palette.  And it stared at us every morning and evening.  I had almost gotten to the point where I didn’t quite see it anymore–almost.

So the real pressure for me wasn’t even really the aesthetics of the thing, it was functionality: behind the faucet and behind the stove, we were getting water and grease spots on the drywall, and that could only last a short period of time before it started to cause serious issues.  And when you’ve already done un-sexy renovations because of problems you didn’t foresee and that didn’t turn up on any of the inspections (new furnace, lead paint, new windows, mold, rodents, spiders), you really don’t want to create problems for yourself.  So we were very motivated to get the tile in pretty much the instant we knew what we wanted.  Which mostly amounted to my husband saying, “Please, honey, just pick something.”

We had two workers, an older man and a younger dude, both speaking flowing and exotic Lithuanian the whole time and taking smoke breaks every 8 minutes.  They were seriously awesome–such nice fellas.  Here’s the older gentleman applying the thinset to begin installing the bullnose.

Because we chose penny tile, which comes on sheets, we needed to also have some end tiles to make it all water-proof.  The end tiles, called bullnose, come in a variety of styles, but I wanted something nearly invisible.  I brought home some 2″ x 6″ pieces in hopes that they’d be able to cut them down to around 1/2″ or 3/4″–the same size as the pennies–so that we wouldn’t notice it hardly at all.  They totally did that, and I love the look.  It might be nice if this were a single piece of long bullnose, but I don’t think it comes in 18″ lengths, and I’m happy with the result–the skinny is so in right now.

This is the left side of the kitchen after the first sheets are installed, but before the grout.  I chose a super light silvery grey grout that picks up the veining in the marble counters, and I loooove it–even more after it dried, because it was just a teensy bit too dark when it was still wet.  I’ll be taking Belinda’s advice from the original Pinterest image and sealing it suuuper well, since I can already tell we’ll need to do that.

But I’m not going to show it to you yet.  Because I really, really want to get those doors on and do a Grand Reveal, or I won’t be able to live with myself.  I’m shooting for next week, but feel free to pressure me.  Plus, we already have houseguests coming in both June and July, so I’d better make it pretty for you all before I have to make it pretty in person!  Cross your fingers!

Wait for it.

I got an email recently asking how I “fit it all in.”  Which is funny, because most days, I decidedly do not feel as though I am getting it all done–far from it.  And I’ll say here as I have said before and will no doubt say again: when it comes to Doing It All, I can’t, I shouldn’t, and I don’t.  No one can really do it ALL.  It’s not really possible to achieve a balanced life by doing absolutely everything–and even if you’re able to get it all done, you’re probably not doing it all well.  So let’s take that one off the table.  I don’t think I should do it ALL, anyway.  I want the work I do to be the best work I can do, and more importantly, I want the work I do to be work only I can do–which is to say, why would I spend my time working on something I know someone else can do better?  Let them do it, get the glory and accolades they deserve for doing something they’ve been gifted to do, and then I have more time to focus my talents on the things I am gifted to do.  Toward that end, I don’t do it ALL.  I have a whole host of people in my life who make it possible for me to pursue the things I do and still get a realistic amount done: my husband, who is a great dad and is home for supper and bath time every single night, even though he is also self-employed and could stay at the office for weeks; my oldest child, who does the dishes every single night of her life (mostly without complaining) and relieves me of my most-hated household task; an every-other-week maid who takes care of most of the other non-tidying household chores; the amazing staff at the Whipstitch shop–Diana, Elle, Theresa, Holly, Laura and Melanie–who bust their tails every day making it beautiful and welcoming you and shipping orders and taking care of tasks so that I don’t have to be there seven days a week (or even two days a week); my editor, who keeps my writing in line and on track for publication; the teachers at my children’s schools, who make sure my kids are taken care of and loved and learning while they’re there during the day, which gives me more time to get things done on my end.  There are a whole pile of people I could thank–and so could you, because even if it’s just the dude who bags your groceries each week, if we’re paying attention, we’ll realize that none of us are really alone.  How awesome.

Having said all that, I did do a “day in the life” post way back for Made By Rae.  I’d actually forgotten about it until Rae was in Atlanta recently and mentioned it–and the alarming level of detail I included in my original email to her which she was obligated to edit down to a reasonable size.  Thank heaven she’s a former scientist, too, and realizes that it’s hard to shake the habit of recording every single detail.  That post is a little out of date, since we’ve moved twice since then, so just for fun, I jotted down details about my day last week to share with you–every day around here is a little (and sometimes a lot) different from the next, so it didn’t seem to make sense to do an “average” day.  This is one specific day, with some rambling about what else might have happened.

NB: I have been told that when people hear about my schedule that it makes them tired.  I guess I understand that, and at the same time, I don’t feel that way.  I mean, I go to bed tuckered just like everyone else, but I guess (1) I figure lots and lots of people have busy lives, so mine isn’t really that different outside of the details, and (2) I like my life, so even if I wasn’t doing these things, I’m sure I’d be doing something, and don’t miss the things I don’t do in order to do the things I love.

Read on for a startlingly detailed account of a day in my life.  If you want.

This is a Day in Our Lives

6:30 am:  The children wake up and come into our room, one by one, for a snuggle.  The youngest has to be fetched, so my husband gets up and brings her from her crib after a couple minutes of her calling, “Daddy!!  Daaaaaadddy!!” from her room across the hall.  We all hang out in the bed until the 3-year-old starts kicking and the baby sits up and pipes, “EAT!”  Then it’s time to head to the kitchen for breakfast.

7:00 am:  The children get oatmeal with raisins and milk most mornings, because our very scientific study has proven that they’re jerks if they don’t get some protein in the morning.  Cold cereal will not cut it–they need something that sticks to the ribs.  One cup of quick oats, a handful of raisins, and two cups of 1% milk in the microwave for four minutes, then divided between three bowls.  They all clean their bowls.

7:15 am:  While the kids are eating, I sneak back to the bed and get under the covers again.  My husband, who is already bathed and dressing, chastises me for not getting a move on.  He’s right, but it’s still irritating.  I’d rather go back to sleep.

7:30 am: I look at the clock and do the math, realizing I have to get going if I’m going to get the kids to school on time to get back home when I need to in order to get the rest of my day started.  So I collect clothing for the two youngest and head to the living room to get them dressed.  I run into the #2 child in the hall and send her to her room to choose her own clothing–at nearly-six, she’s plenty old enough and does a pretty good job.  While I’m getting the littles dressed, I check in with our oldest, who is packing her lunch and getting ready to head to school on her own.  She needs to stay after school to see her adviser, so I give her permission to come home late.

7:42 am:  I begin the never-ending hunt for shoes for these creatures.  No matter what system I introduce, somehow at least one shoe is always, always missing at a crucial time, and since we’re raging cheapskates, none of our younger children have more than two pair, which makes one missing shoe an issue every. single. day.  I wander the house, rounding up the kids, who have run off after getting dressed, and corral them toward the den again.  I locate the missing shoe in the formal living room, under the coffee table.

7:52 am:  I make lunches for all three younger children: sandwich, yogurt, Goldfish, fruit.  I gobble down a hard-boiled egg that my husband has made for me when he made himself a couple for his breakfast.  I kiss him as he heads out the door to his car.  The kids all holler, “BYE, DADDY!!” which never fails to make my heart beat faster (for real, I’m not just putting that in there, I really do love it when they do that).

8:03 am:  The youngest and the next-to-youngest are squabbling over which of them will ride in the car seat in the very back of the minivan.  This is my own fault, for letting the youngest sit in her brother’s seat when he’s not there, which means she now thinks that’s OK to do all the time.  Some wrestling ensues.  It’s a physical act to squeeze every small body into a seat that is securely fastened.  The five-year-old buckles herself, and watches the scene with disinterest.

8:07 am:  We pull out of the garage and head to the children’s schools.  The kids call for Mary Poppins on CD for the 99 millionth time–it’s a copy of the soundtrack that my oldest got when she was little, and rediscovered during this most recent move.  She played it for them in the car when my mother was visiting, and now we can’t seem to shake it.  Only our son and I are tired of it–everyone else thinks it RULES.  I hum “Spoonful of Sugar” sometimes in my sleep.

8:32 am:  We arrive at school for the two middle ones, and I walk them to their classrooms.  Our son goes into his room with nary a look back, as does our daughter.  We seem to the be the only family who doesn’t have to wrestle with tears at school, for which I am insanely grateful.

8:37 am:  I’m back in the car with the youngest, driving to her preschool next.  While the other kids are at school until 3, she’s not yet two, so her school ends at 1 pm.  It’s a whole lot closer to our house, though, so I drop her off on the way home.  We start Mary Poppins all over again on the drive.

9:02 am:  We arrive at the youngest’s school, only two minutes late.  They loooove her here, which is awesome, but I don’t think they love me as much.  I am the mom who never writes her name on the diaper (but we never have a marker that isn’t dried up!), and I always see their looks and interpret that as disapproval.  Which makes me think, “Why don’t they just write it on there, then?  It’s not that hard!”  Meanwhile, I’m sure they’re thinking, “Why can’t she just write the name on the diaper?  It’s not that hard!”  We are at an impasse.  I sign the baby in and head home.

9:07 am:  I arrive home, park in the garage, and head inside.  First stop: a real breakfast.  I have some store-brand granola (“Healthy Cereal!” it says on the box) and some plain, non-fat yogurt.  I tried that Greek stuff, and it had more protein, but didn’t taste as good.  And I used to do the vanilla because I hated how the plain tasted, but with the vanilla you might as well be eating ice cream for all the health benefits it gives you, so I learned to appreciate the taste of the non-fat plain.  And I hate to say it, but now I prefer the plain.  It bugs me when the dieting experts are right, but there it is.

9:10 am:  I’m checking email while eating, seeing if there are any fires that need to be put out.  There’s a note from a prospective student at the shop, so I forward that on to Elle.  There is a notification from the bank to deal with, a couple messages from customers to forward to Diana, and some items to flag for “later,” a mythical time in the land of email that never seems to come.  The rest is junk, so I delete it.  I finish eating breakfast while clicking through my Google reader and looking at what everyone’s been up to.

9:30 am:  I take a shower and get dressed.  Mostly, while showering, I think about what needs to get done and do some mental prioritizing.  I also have some imaginary conversations with people, mostly to work out anxiety or anger, so that I won’t have to have actual conversations because when I say things out loud in the shower I realize how ridiculous I sound and it saves me from having to say it in person and make a fool of myself.  I spend the last few minutes while I’m washing my hair spending imaginary lottery money.  Math can be fun.  After I get out and get dressed, I take a load of laundry to the washer and put it in, then take the clean stuff out of the dryer and take it to my room, to be folded later.

10 am:  This is when the bulk of my work takes place. I finish editing an e-course post and get it up, with a couple snafus along the way (my video server was down and I couldn’t get the video uploaded, so I had to figure out a workaround, and by the time I did, the server was back up, which wasn’t a problem except that I lost 45 minutes of my day).  Once the video is up on the server, I edit the text for the lesson and make sure the accompanying PDF is working correctly.  I post the lesson live, then remember to email my students with an update.  I have some emails to write to my in-person students, too, so I write and send those, along with some replies to send from folks who’ve written asking questions about current classes.  I respond to some comments on my e-course, and then write a reply to someone who has sent a very kind email about Stitch by Stitch. I congratulate myself for having turned over a new leaf and doing such a good job keeping my communications current; then I admit silently that I don’t think it will last.

11:48 am:  The phone rings and it’s the hospital where our son had his dislocated elbow treated last November.  They’d like to argue about the bill–again–while I work to convince them that no matter what code was used on the ER form, this was, in fact, an actual emergency that deserved to be treated in the emergency room.  They do not enjoy the argument.  They also regret that they called me right before lunch.  I feed the fish while she “checks her records.”

12:15 pm:  I have some lunch–a sandwich and some cheese crackers.  Big glass of ice water with half a lemon squeezed in it.  I eat while checking Twitter and responding to tweets. I check my email, again, in case I’ve gotten something really cool or someone else has magically cleaned out my inbox–either one would be fine by me.

12:30 pm:  I set up some quick photos for the blog, and shoot those in the last minutes I have before I have to pick up the baby.  The light isn’t perfect, but I’ll fix it in my editing software.  I check my email one last time.  For fun.

1 pm:  I pick up our youngest at school.  She blows kisses to her teachers and waves good-bye to all her little friends on the playground.  She insists that I pick her up and let her drink from the water fountain, which I do.  We listen to Mary Poppins in the car on the way home.  Again.

1:15 pm:  We walk in the door and baby heads straight to her bed for a nap.  Well, straight to her bed AFTER having a graham cracker and sipping some ice water, all while I hold her, just shy of tapping my foot and saying, “C’mon, kid, we don’t have all day!”  She gets in the bed but doesn’t want to lie down: “I sit, Mommy!”  I close the door and she says, “See you later!”

1:20 pm:  I sit down to polish off edits for my next book, which are due basically any second now.  There are a lot of little things to go over, and I don’t want to miss anything.  My big fear is that this one will come out and I’ll hear the dreaded sophomore jinx: “Well, it’s not as good as the first one.”  So I want to be super extra careful here.  I scribble away on paper, then transfer those to something more coherent in a doc file.

3 pm:  I have to wake the little one to get in the car and pick up her brother and sister, which I really don’t like to do.  But since we’re already late every single day–I’m supposed to pick them up at 3, but I’m usually leaving the house at 3–I really can’t let her sleep any later.  We drive to the school and traffic isn’t too bad, thank goodness–the alternate route we rely on when there’s a wreck on the highway takes twice as long.  I get our son first and our girl second, since I used to get our girl first but she asked me to get our son first because “I like it when everyone is here to see me as I come out of my class!”  We get in the car and head back home.  There is a wrestling match over the back car seat.  I finally get fed up and move BOTH car seats to the back, and then they don’t like that, either.  I buckle them in and wash my hands of the whole thing.

4 pm:  We arrive at the grocery store.  I refuse to give up any of my precious child-free hours to do things like fold laundry or shop for food, so it all gets done in that after-school no-man’s-land between 3 and 6.  The two little ones ride in that cart that looks like a car, which handles like it’s rolling through caramel and corners like a semi truck, but has plenty of room; the 5-year-old walks/wanders/touches things.  We get a week’s worth of groceries, including a frozen pizza for Friday night and another bag of chocolate chips for cookies: I have somehow convinced my eldest that she is allowed to bake cookies for us if she’ll also cook dinner.  And she bought it! Friday night is totally my favorite night of the week.

4:45 pm:  We arrive home, just in time to greet my oldest as she gets home from school.  I put away groceries while the little children terrorize one another in the living room.  At one point, I have to go stop the boy from stepping on the baby’s head as she lays on the floor.  The five-year-old fibs and says she had no idea what was going on.  I send them all to their rooms for “quiet play,” which I know will only last a few minutes, but it’s worth it.  I take the opportunity to start supper–we’re having meatloaf and “nummy,” which is what the kids call the creamed corn casserole my mom gave me the recipe to make, along with green beans and some salad, which the two littlest ones won’t eat.  I get the baked items in the oven and set the timer.

5:15 pm:  At which point I realize I haven’t put up a blog post for the day, so I fix that real quick using the photos I shot earlier, then beat myself up for not doing it sooner, followed  promptly by reminding myself that the blog should be fun and not give me angst.  So then I beat myself up a little for letting myself get anxious about the blog.  Then the kids come out and want to play again, so I let them.  I try to distract them by leading them to tidy the playroom and pick up their toys and put away lunchboxes while I dash around the house tidying up before supper–putting jammies back where they belong and finding stray crayons and Legos and Thomas trains and stuffed animals in the most unlikely places.  The peace lasts all of 45 seconds before I cave and sit them in front of “Arthur” while supper finishes cooking.

6 pm:  My husband has arrived home from work and changed clothes, so we all sit down to eat.  We don’t have a dining room table, and if we did, I’m using the dining room for my studio until the basement gets finished, so we wouldn’t be able to eat there, anyway.  Instead, we eat at the short table my mom rescued from a Baptist church Sunday School auction, sitting in those little kindergarten chairs and trying not to let food get into the cubby compartments that are filled with construction paper.  My husband and I work hard to fill one another in on our days, in between guiding our young people to a life with better table manners.  Ahem.

6:20 pm:  I have to scoot and get to the shop to teach a class, so I kiss the babies as they finish dinner.  While I’m gone, my husband will bathe them and read to them and get them to bed around 7 or so.  Our oldest child will wash the dishes and clean the kitchen (I hope).  I hit the highway and check my traffic app on my phone to decide which way to drive so I don’t get stuck behind a wreck.

6:50 pm:  I arrive at the shop, only a tiny bit later than I usually would, and greet my class.  Diana is there, so we catch up with what projects she’s sewing, and what new fabrics have come in, and which customers she’s seen lately.  She shows me pictures of what she’s sewing at home, and I try not to shop for fabric.  I repeat to myself: “I do NOT need more fabric.”

7 pm:  Class begins, an Intermediate Sewing class with some really lovely ladies.  We’re making a ruffled half-apron, and they are killing it, they’re so awesome.  The whole class flies by, because no one hits anyone else or needs a diaper changed, and they all have actual opinions and ideas that don’t involve refusing to do anything I tell them. It’s a nice break to talk to other educated women outside of my home about things that matter to them.  It helps balance some of the mom-ing I do the rest of the day.

9:30 pm:  Class ends and the ladies leave.  I give in to the temptation and cut some fabric for myself, and ring it up along with a new book and some notions before locking up the shop and setting the alarm.

10 pm:  I get home and sit with my husband for a minute while he finishes up his work for the evening.  I leave him to shut down his computer and get his things set up for the next day and walk down to our bedroom, where I realize I have left a whole load of laundry on my bed that needs to be folded.  I briefly struggle with wanting to move it all to the bench/floor, but then I realize we’ve been doing that for days and days and it’s really time for me to get it folded.  So I fold a little laundry before he gets to the room.

10:30 pm:  We brush our teeth and floss side-by-side in our jammies, which strangely is just what I always imagined marriage would be.  I climb into bed and read a single chapter in Game of Thrones, which I picked up a few weeks ago at the grocery store (on markdown!). I’m really enjoying it, but only let myself read it at night before bed, so I get one or two chapters at a time. I think that’s working out for me, though, because it means it’ll last longer.  My husband comes to bed, checks his phone one last time, and we turn out the lights.  There is brief hand-holding before we fall asleep.

Seriously, this all really happened.  Some days I don’t have a class in the evenings, and others I do have a class from 10-12:30, but other than that, it’s about like this.  We’re creatures of habit, and I love that I have the privilege of making days like this my habit.  Hopefully this answers some of those questions about how I do it all–the straight and short answer being that some stuff never gets done, some stuff we do super fast, and other stuff we carve out the time to make it happen.  How about you?  What techniques do you use to fit in the things that you want to keep at the top of your priority list?  I’d love to hear about them–I can use all the help I can get!

It mostly started with Ellen Baker’s Quilt Blocks, which just came in at the shop.  I wanted some yardage, but didn’t really know which prints and how much of each, so I settled on a couple of charm packs (I really wanted a jelly roll, so I could make another one of these, but since I don’t really need another one of them, strictly speaking, I thought I’d leave the jellies for you people–you’re welcome).  With 84 squares five inches to a side, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump to HSTs, to paraphrase my grandfather.  The hop, skip and jump part, not the HSTs.  Unless that’s an engineering term, in which case I suppose he might have said that.  But otherwise, very unlikely, as I don’t believe he ever quilted.

I’m not entirely sure where this is going yet (the quilt or the post, to be honest), only that the background is Kona cactus, because.  I mean, it’s basically my signature color.  Matches Gutermann 712 perfectly, and I think we all know I buy that by the case, literally.  Plus, it goes so nicely with all the colors Ellen chose to put in her collection.  I do think it was sweet of her to create an entire fabric collection in my color palette, don’t you?  These really ALL are my favorite colors.  So no matter what direction I decide to go with these HSTs–I’m really just fiddling now–I have a good feeling about this one.

I’m also playing around with my summer citrus quilt fabrics, inspired by this print.  I was at the shop on Saturday while Holly was there–have you met Holly?  She’s awesome, and the best up-seller on the Whipstitch staff.  For reals.  The lady can convince you to buy “just a couple more yards” of pretty much anything, and I include myself in that statement.  I already loved this citrus print, but when I pulled it out and bemoaned the fact that I didn’t know what to make with it (I SO do not need another skirt that I have no top to go with), her eyes got all huge and she gushed googly happiness all over it, and before you knew what had happened, I’d pulled a bunch of prints to coordinate and was planning a quilt.  It was lovely.

So now I’m three rows into a zigzag quilt.  Can you believe I haven’t made one of these before?  It’s totally about time for me to get on this one.  But I wanted to mix it up, so I’m adding a micro-zag to one side of all the larger zigs, in a really sharp, citrusy yellow that I wouldn’t ordinarily choose (it doesn’t play nice with Kona cactus, for one thing), but that in this case is just the ticket.  I haven’t even trimmed these bits, I was so ready to see how it would all come together–you know that feeling where you’re not quite sure it will work out, but then you roll the dice anyway, and you start to realize it will work out, and you get so excited you’ve done half the work without realizing it?  It was like that.  With snacks.

I still have at least three other fabrics to go, and hope they turn out as well as the ones I’ve begun with.  I especially like that Malka Dubrowsky checkered-picnic print–yummy. The yellow zags really pop against the white, too, and I’m so pleased with them that I don’t even mind that they get cut off a bit in the inner corners when the pieces come together.  That’s what I’m telling myself for now, anyway.

And last but for reals not least, I’m working on a whimsically primary-colored HST quilt using the brand-new Summersville, some Konas, and a cross-hatch print that I adore.  Shock of all surprises, it’s yellow–Whipstitch yellow, to be exact, which I’d like to point out for the thirteen millionth time is the TRUE color of the year, no matter what Pantone says, and was named by Country Living magazine as the “neutral to have these days.”  So there–who’s ahead of the curve now, suckas??

I’m only two blocks into this one, but I am really liking where it’s headed.  The colors in these fabrics are so delicious, and the prints are so light-hearted.  I’m using the Potager block design from Modern Blocks (which we carry at the shop, bee tee dubs), and think the bright colors and very subtly textured background make it feel super mod and somehow updated-kindergarten-y.  If that makes sense.

These two quilts now officially bring my color count of yellow-based quilts to three, if you include this one (and I certainly do).  And while I’m singing the praises of the ladies at the shop, I should mention that Diana pointed out I ought to combine all my yellow scraps into an all-yellow quilt when I’m done.  Yes.  Yes, I should.

Each bird is made of small scraps from my scrap basket, then stuffed and stitched shut.  They don’t take much time to sew, but choosing the fabrics to put together, and combining lots of fabrics for a miniature flock, was harder than I would have thought.  Our little girls have a soft, buttery yellow wall color and a pale, pale pink ceiling, and both of them looooove pink–the two-year-old has begin pointing at pink and saying, “Pretty!” because that’s what she thinks that color is called–so lots of pink and purply-violet seemed to be in order.

Probably the biggest challenge was finding just the right stick.  In this case, I had to make do with two separate sticks that I planted next to one another in a crystal glass.  The glass is part of a set that belonged to my husband’s grandmother, and since the dresser was handmade by his grandfather for his mother when she was young, it seemed fitting.  The dresser needs repainting and I am picturing crystal knobs once that happens, so I really love having these pieces together.  I filled the glass with aquarium gravel rather than sand because it gives more stability to the sticks, and more weight to the base.

When I made the version for the baby shower, I thought I would sew each bird to the branch using clear nylon filament thread, but that was a complete disaster–the birds would sit for a tenuous second, then flip upside down and dangle from the branch, wordlessly.  It was really pathetic and a little sick, actually.  So hot glue came to the rescue.  And it was so easy and so quick that now I want to hot glue everything in sight.

The photos framed on the wall behind the birds were taken when our oldest and my husband and I were living in DC before my middle daughter was born.  We went to pretty much every botanical garden in the District and surrounding states and took photos of the prettiest flowers we found, with the plan of framing them when we came home with our new baby girl.  All three of us took photos here and there, but now no one really knows which ones were shot by whom, which is fine.  I am hoping to swap out the black Ikea frames for white ones, but that’s pretty far down the list of priorities when you still don’t have kitchen cabinet doors.

Some of the birds as nestled between two branches to give them a stronger perch; when I did that, I made sure to hot glue on both sides.  I think it makes them look cool, like they’re hanging out after school, waiting for the pretty girls to walk by.  Both of the little girls super love their new bird friends, and it makes a really great impact when you come into their room from the hallway, next to the sweet yellow walls and the pink ceiling and the soft morning light coming through their curtains:

Now if I can just finish their matching postage-stamp quilts, we’ll be in business around here.

As I’m finishing up writing my new book, the last of the major tasks is to finalize the patterns.  That means taking each pattern that I’ve developed that requires a paper pattern–there are eight of those in this book of 25 projects–and grading them to include multiple sizes.  Patterns are developed in a single size, then modified beyond that to fit a whole range of sizes in addition to that initial one.

It’s a somewhat complicated process, and I don’t mind telling you that this time around, I’ve asked a professional to help me with it, rather than me tackling it all by myself.  There’s still plenty of pattern-testing to be done, minor changes here and there, and the nail-biting that goes along with hoping every dot and every notch is just right, but it takes a load off my mind to know that I won’t be going it alone.

What I’m wondering, though, is what it is that all of us are looking for when it comes to pattern sizing.  I think when I first started sewing what I most wanted was less ease–which is to say, I wanted the patternmakers to stop assuming I was an octogenarian who wanted sixteen extra inches of fabric around my body regardless of the style of the garment.  To a certain degree, I think we’ve seen that happen in patterns over the past ten years: there seem to be more fitted styles and more accuracy in the sizing than there used to be.

What else, though?  Will you guys help me out with this one?  Tell me what it is YOU’RE looking for in pattern sizes when you purchase a sewing pattern.  Are you looking for more sizes per envelope?  Or fewer (less paper to fold back up)?  Do you want a wider range of sizes, from tiny to plus-sized?  For pattern sizes to be closer to off-the-rack sizes (rather than couture sizes, which they usually are, meaning that while you might wear a size 4 in store-bought clothing you wear a size 10/12 in sewing patterns)?  Would you prefer all your patterns to come one-size-per-envelope, or do you really like that you can get multiple sizes in one package?  I’d really love to hear–because I think I know what you’ll say, but I’m not sure, so I’m hoping I’m right.  And if I’m wrong, I’d love to hear that BEFORE these new patterns are published!

When she and I would speak, which was a couple of times a week, she was just checking in, being a good friend.  And what would come out of my mouth was wave after wave of anxiety and frustration and fear.  Just fear.  About my business and my life and my worries and…I mean, seriously, I would worry about worrying, it was so bad.  I hated it, hated the sound of it in my voice, hated the sticky feeling it left behind me once the conversation was over, hated the way I felt so lost and undirected for the rest of the day, as if the anxiety had stolen that moment of friendly concern, that moment of human connection, and then wanted to take the rest of my day and my evening from me, too.

Until I heard myself one afternoon, saying something different.  It was spring, and the sunlight was filtering through the window in my studio, making a skewed-square block on the floor at my feet.  I opened the door and let the air brush past me, carrying the sound of a red metal wagon scraping across the lawn as the children harvested rocks.  And the words out of my mouth surprised even me:  “You know, I’m feeling really good.  I think it’s because I found some time to sit down and sew today.”

And it was that moment when you turn the kaleidoscope just the right way, and the tiles all fall into alignment, and what was a mess of chaos and translucent confusion becomes clarity and geometric logic.  I knew that I had hit upon a clue–not the answer, but a clue–as to what had been missing, what had been allowing this cistern of worry to fill to overflowing inside me: I had forgotten to sew.

When I am at a sewing machine, at MY sewing machine, I focus in a way that few other things in this world can call me to do.  My vision is limited, in the best way, to only that which is directly in front of me.  I am not worried about what I will make for dinner, or when I will get the oil changed, or even how I will pay the bills and cover the rent and appease the IRS.  I am not worried.  The task in front of me is enough.  I have spent untold hours of my life wanting to be enough, and in this one place, I always, always am.  Enough for the task, enough for the machine, enough for the fabric–not because they ask so little, but because they meet me halfway.

Sewing can be about control, and I am not above admitting that for me this is true.  We live in a chaotic, broken world that brings me to tears and breaks my heart on a regular basis.  Taking an idea, birthing it and shaping it and seeing it clearly in my imagination, and then tackling the raw materials and making it tangible and beautiful, and even scientifically reproducible–it gives me a space where I can be in charge for a moment, where I am reminded that as ugly as the world can be, it is also a thousand times more beautiful, and as hateful and broken as some of us are, we are also priceless miracles.  I am in charge at the machine, I can conquer, I can make order out of chaos, and when that is done, when the project is complete and before me, I can face the rest of the world with a steadier breath.

I learned to sew from my mother, in the way that many of us learned from our mother: by watching, and in bits and pieces between the frustration that comes from learning to sew with someone who knows you left and right.  I’d been watching so closely, even when I didn’t know I was watching, that I was pretty sure I already knew what I was doing.  So the lessons didn’t go that well–at least, not in the way either of us expected.  I took a sewing class in college, as part of my undergraduate degree, and it was better, but I still wasn’t sewing much.  My step-mother gave me her old Singer sewing machine, and I made an enormous pair of pants out of cheap, flimsy fabric.  They fit so poorly that for years after, I bought fabric and patterns and matched and re-matched them but never sewed anything for fear that it wouldn’t turn out.

I finally got to really sewing in graduate school.  I’d made things for my home and clothing for my daughter, flower girl dresses for a friend’s wedding, some simple skirts for myself, but these were all small projects spaced months apart.  In between them, the machine would sit dormant.  In graduate school, that all changed.  Maybe it was a control thing again, because I didn’t want to face the mountains of research necessary to write my thesis.  But partly I believe it was because my life was full of so many names and dates and documents and pages and files that I ached for another way to view the world, another lens to focus the light.  Sewing really gave me that: I made friends I wouldn’t have made otherwise, I learned things about myself I would have ignored or denied, and I got balance.

I get a lot of satisfaction out of sewing.  It appeals to the frugal home-maker in me: making it for less, building a lovely place to return to at the end of the day, providing for my husband and children, stitching a legacy for those who come after me.  My family sews, they always have.  It really never occurred to me NOT to sew, because that’s just what the ladies I’d grown up around always did.  My grandmother still does cross-stitch and embroidery, at the ripe age of 87.  My mother owned her own design and manufacturing company for fifteen years, sewing out of our basement.  I have very few photos from when I was young that don’t involve at least one person wearing a handmade garment.  We were craftsy before craftsy was cool.  So there is no doubt that there is an element of connectedness that I get out of sewing, an element of domestic satisfaction, an aesthetic pleasure that comes from making just what I’d pictured in my head, a sense of satisfaction and contentedness and rightness that goes beyond a need to control.

I think there is something in all of us that wants to MAKE.  Like there is something in all of us that just knows there is good and evil in the world, that there is right and wrong, that love is better than hate.  There is a part of us, across cultures and climates and economic boundaries, that wants to leave a mark–one that we have made, unique to us, a creative seed that we have planted.  And somewhere in that seed are all those other things: the connection to our families and our past; the satisfaction that comes from simple beauty; the contentment that comes from a well-run home; the relief that comes when we find a moment where we don’t fight to be in control of everything, but can manage just this one small thing.

That is why I sew: because my head is filled with ideas, and each of them meets a need in me that I didn’t know was there.  I don’t want to wake up twenty years from now and look back on conversations that were filled with my own anxious voice, sounding unfamiliar to me.  I think as I get older–even though I shudder when that particular old-lady phrase crosses my lips–I am less worried about what’s in it for me and more hoping that I’m putting enough in it.  And when I sew, I can see the progress, right there in my hands.  I can hear the alleviation of my anxiety, I can see the smiles that my labor produces.  And every day is a new start, a new chance to get it right.  That is why I sew.