Back to Quilting

Well it is still snowing and spring has not come but my dogs are home and snuffling and snoring; I am out driving and most of all I am back quilting.  It all seems about two months but is only 3 weeks of enforced rest.  Sometimes it seemed as if it was too difficult to do anything but read.  The other day as I headed to my easy chair again I saw this.

I did not have the heart to disturb this kitty curled up on a quilt and a shawl which if he only knew was knitted with wool spun from dog hair.  So I went up to my sewing room and started to sew.

You hear quilters talk about how touching fabric makes you feel but you do not realize how true this is until you have not felt like touching it for a while.  While all outside is cold and often grey in my sewing room there was colour from touchable batik fabric.  The result is this.

 It is based on a quilt called Traffic Jam which you can find on line here.
Pat Sloan Free Patterns Traffic Jam  The guild I belong to is doing this as a workshop if it ever stops snowing on guild days and causing cancellations.

This is my version of sorts.  Have you ever read something and thought you remembered exactly what it said.  Well sometimes you read and do not take in all the parameters.  I did this with Traffic Jam.  I had read 9 patch before surgery and started making 9 patches.  They seemed big but this was supposed to be a small quilt. I should have clued in but liked the large squares which made a quilt bigger, faster.  So the sashing disappeared and a stray left over 9 patch on point became a monument in what I call Town Square.  I like it.  It fits my size requirements but it is not Traffic Jam.  You never know what is going to happen especially if you do not review patterns carefully.  But some accidents result in good things including a laugh at myself.

I am working on a paper piecing scrap quilt through a Carol Doak Yahoo Group and the February installment came.  I am still supposed to be taking it easy but.........................  Well after Town Square was pinned up the design wall is filling up with the main block and 8 satellite blocks for February.  I am so glad the puss, a chocolate Siamese, decided to curl up so that I looked for something else to do than moulder in my easy chair.  I had also forgotten how time flies when you are busy quilting but my body is still healing and it tells when I must be still.  But it does not stop my mind from planning more quilts.

When I am finally released from restrictions there will be a pile of quilts to be quilted.  So what looks lovely on the design wall will be even more lovely with stitching and binding.  Thank goodness for quilting, cats and serendipity.

The sun did shine today.  It is still there and some tulips are coming up in pots in the window.  Winter is on the wane.   Now tell that to those blasted snowflakes.