Depression quilt

Whoa, I so do NOT know where the time goes. I swear I never mean to go a whole week between posts. I am kind of lazy about taking photos of my projects these days, and I am kind of selfish about naptime, too, since it's the only free time I have during the day or evening when I don't feel like falling asleep. So I guess that's why the posts don't flow as frequently as they could.

Speaking of time flying, I had my 24 week checkup today. 24 weeks!? Already? Anyway, all appears to be well, and I got my prescriptions for the always delicious glucose tolerance test in a few weeks, and for a super-duper high-tech sonogram at the hospital at the end of June. It will be an "anomaly screening" and who wouldn't want one of those? Le sigh. Just another thing to be anxious about, I guess. Breeeeeeeaaaathe. Must.....breathe.....

So. Mother's Day. I trust you all had a nice one? Me, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and felt uber-crabby all day long. I cut my coupons, went grocery shopping, did the dishes - all the usual crap. Then I declared naptime to be mine, all mine, and while Hubs snored away on the sofa I disappeared to my sewing area.


This block goes by many names, among them pinwheel, broken dishes, and hourglass. I just call it awesomely fun to make. You may notice that none of the blocks seem to have anything to do with the others. That is intentional.

I am patterning them after this:


This is the "Big Dipper" quilt from this book:



I love this book and have taken it out of the library a bobillion times. Now I'm finally inspired to make something from it. Why this quilt and this book in particular? Well, let me tell you how I've gone about buying quilt fabrics over the past 10 years or so. It has primarily been in wee little cuts of 1/8, 1/4, and occasionally a splurge of 1/2 yard. Yes, I was one of those buttheads who took 15 bolts up to the Joann's cutting counter and asked for 1/8 yard of each. Jerk! Once I started working at a quilt shop, I learned that is a) acceptable but kind of rude and b) dumb if you ever want to make an actual quilt. The problem is that most fabrics go out of print very quickly and if you want to make a large, cohesive quilt you should buy at least 2 yards of any fabric. More if you really love it. It just won't be there when you go back for more. Trust me on this, I have seen it happen and experienced it personally many, many times. This is not necessarily so true with cheaper fabrics at a chain store like Joann's, because they tend to order in huge lots, unlike a quilt shop which probably orders 1 or maybe 2 bolts. I have definitely seen fabrics on the Joann's shelf for YEARS. But the general rule is: buy it now, or you'll be out of luck later.

Anyway, this book uses 5" squares for the primary design of each quilt. Sweet! It's an entire book of very scrappy quilts, and that is what my stash is well suited for these days. So I've been having a ball pulling out 2 coordinating fabrics and slapping them together to make these fun, easy blocks. Want to know a secret? There's nary a triangle to be cut or sewn in this block. Super simple.

I am in full-on quilt mode right now. It's all I want to do. In fact, I'm right now calculating how much sewing time I can squeeze out of the remainder of Daughter's nap after I finish this, just so I can make more blocks. I don't know what this quilt will be when it's done - it could be a wallhanging, or a lap quilt, or a king-size behemoth. Depends on how long this fever grips me! Once I get lots of blocks done, I have to head to Joann's and find one fabric to neutralize the craziness for sashing and borders. That'll be a trick, for sure.

OH! And as to the post title - I am calling this my Depression quilt. Not because I am depressed - note the capital D - but because I keep thinking that if I were living in the Depression era I'd have to just work with the wee scraps I have and not buy more. And, uh, with the way the economy is going that may just be prophetic ($67 to fill my gas tank last week - ow).

I'm not too hot to stitch garments right now, but I did finish up a couple new things for my etsy shop, and Karen's been sewing up a storm, so do go check it out. There are some really nice things in there now, with more to come.