It was a good weekend, as you can tell from the quilt-completion. I also ironed and stacked a couple more small-ish quilts' worth of fabrics, and contemplated patterns, and found a couple patterns in some magazines I had that I want to use.

So...maybe I'll post photos of the fabric stacks later on, but just for the record now, here they are:

1. Pink and grey fabrics, sort of a late 1930s/early 1940s feel to them...some of the prints are kind of feed-sack-like. I think I have 14 fat quarters (ones I bought specifically to use together, plus others I grabbed from the stash and said, "ooh, that goes with these!). Also have 2 1/2 yards (or maybe 3) of one of the prints for a border. I don't think I have a pattern chosen for these yet that seems perfect; there's not a huge amount of contrast and that could be a problem. Maybe a zig zag pattern alternating grey and pink dominated prints.

2. Brown, turquoise, and sort of kelly green combinations (It's not exactly kelly green but it's close...it's hard to describe). I think I have a dozen fat quarters and a couple half-yard pieces. No pattern in mind yet but I'm leaning towards either doing something like a "Yellow Brick Road" or maybe just cutting a big bunch of rectangles and sewing them together...just doing simple one-patches.

3. Sock Monkey fabric. I don't have so much of this (and it's hard to find blending pieces not from the same line). I have a pattern for this, it's from one of the back issues of (I think) McCall's quilting...just a very simple pattern, some blocks pinwheel, some framed-square, but most just big squares, which will take advantage of the oddball prints.

4. "Paris Cats." Another novelty-themed fabric. Another one that probably would be best served by a simple pattern. So I'm going to use this one. The brown-dominated fabrics will be the darker parts of the squares and pink-dominated (or cream-background) will be the lighter parts. The bars that are yellow on the model quilt will be a sage green, which coordinates with the other fabrics I'm using.

5. A bunch of (mostly) Westminster prints in sort of a sagey, grey, sea-glass palette. Not sure yet what to do with them; I might just do a simple "stairstep" type quilt of rectangles. I'm not sure how many of these I have; I didn't count them.

6. I unearthed my pile of State Bird fabrics and the white Kona Cotton...again, this is going to be just a simple quilt, large blocks featuring the birds with white sashing. This one is going to be full-sized, that is, large enough to use as a bed quilt.

I don't know why I suddenly got re-interested in piecing tops. My interest in different crafts seems to wax and wane...I get very interested in one craft or one project and only want to work on it for a while. I've decided not to apologize for that, not to force myself into some rota of "finish this up first" (except for the knit TARDIS; that does have a bit of a deadline). I think if I go where inspiration strikes me, not only will I be happier but I may make better artistic decisions. (If it's not too pretentious to call what I do "art," I do have my questions about it because my quilts are mostly 'traditional' quilts designed to be used as warm coverings and I usually use patterns that someone else designed. But they make me happy. I guess I'll say that I'd like to see the word CRAFT reclaimed to mean what it really means - useful things made with skill and made to be beautiful. Sadly, too many people take CRAFT to mean something you do with the Day Camp Kids using old toilet-paper tubes and chenille stems. And though that kind of "craft" can be fun and has its purpose, I think that kind of stuff lead to a certain backlash, a certain snark...when someone says they do "crafts," all too often the response is a patronizing, "Oh, that's nice" or a look that says, "You have failed my hipness test." But if you claim to do "art," people remain interested in you, at least until they brand you a poseur...

But I do think what I do is craft, rather than art...craft in the old, William-Morris sense. I am making things that have a function but which are also (hopefully) beautiful...)