The weekend's creating...

It was a good weekend. (I remain convinced that everyone, whether or not they subscribe to one of the Abrahamic faiths, needs a sabbath day. The human brain and human body are not made to work seven days in a row without a break. Sometimes I think we are not even really made to work six days with only one as a break...)

Saturday, I finished the current quilt top. This is a very "modern" quilt pattern, called Cheese, no Crackers, that is designed (at least, in the size that I made) to be made using one of those "charm packs" of 5" squares.

As soon as I saw the Zen Chic "Juggling Summer" line of fabrics, I knew that was the one for this quilt top:



The quilt is called "lap size" but it's almost as wide as a twin bed size, if shorter. These colors were a real departure for me, especially the big swaths of avocado green - but I like the finished product a lot. Not sure whether to hold this one back and hand quilt it (I could see it done with an all-over, "Orange Peel" in sort of a sashiko style) or to have it machine quilted. I do think it would look best with a thread that very closely matches the avocado green IF I get it machine quilted (machine quilting tends to be more "obvious" than hand quilting). Or, as I said, I might hand quilt it with a large allover pattern based on one of the old sashiko patterns, and maybe use a tan thread or an off-white. I will need to think about it.

After finishing this quilt top, I started another one. I had several ideas in mind but I started thinking again about the Mixtape Quilt pattern I bought several years back, and how I had bought fabrics for it. And here's where having at least a minimally-organized stash helps: I was able to go to the very tub they were in, and pull them out, and I had the pattern with them. And the more I looked at them, the more I wanted to start the quilt. Because I really liked the colors, and because this past month has been sort of grey here, and these colors were what I wanted to be looking at for the next few weeks as I worked on this

So I started the top.



Yes, yellow and pink.

Yellow and pink!

(Drawing from Scaterberry, on Deviantart).

I've liked yellow and pink together for a long time, even before the existence of Fluttershy. You have to be a little careful because the wrong shades together can get garish, but if you use mostly delicate, light pinks and yellows - colors more like spring flower colors and less like hot pink or strong yellow - it works. (I am using a yellow Moda Marble as the sashing on this one. I know yellow is often one of the no-go colors for quilters - lots of people think it's too strong or too bright or just don't like to use it - but I like it. I like the buttery Depression-era style yellows and the more delicate, just-a-few-shades-away-from-off-white yellows.)

So the sunniness of this quilt is going to make me happy as I work on it.

And it's really fast and easy - I have all the bits cut already for the blocks! (and now I slap my forehead and go, "Man, why did I not start this quilt earlier?"). And it's fun - the cutting is minimal, the sewing is fun (no "hard" seams) and a big part of the quilt is picking what fabrics to put together. I can see making more of these. (In the version of the pattern I have, there are three different quilts, each in three sizes. I'm doing the 70x70 size of the version called Greatest Hits - it takes 1/4 yards (I used fat quarters) of 16 different fabrics. This is a pattern that would work really well with novelty fabrics, but mine is (as you can see) going to be mostly pretty little (or not-so-little) florals.

Speaking of novelty fabrics, I think this is going to become the next-next quilt top:



Lots of novelty fabrics in aquas with some red and grey. (One of the things I love so much about quilting is the opportunity to play around with color, and use all kinds of odd combinations of colors you might not wear, but that work in a quilt). This is going to become a pattern called  Taking Turns, which is another fairly simple, squares-and-rectangles quilt. (I LIKE the geometric quilts. I know some people think they're too simple or too basic or evidence of someone not "stretching" themselves....but I do enjoy making these, and I enjoy using them, and I'd probably be annoyed and cuss a lot if I tried to do something like Mariner's compass with lots of fiddly points. And besides, the fabrics I really love tend to lend themselves better to this type of quilt than to something really fiddly to piece).

Also, on my weekly trip to Mart of Wal, I found yet another "wave" of blindbag ponies. (I don't know which one this is; it seems very hit or miss which ones we get). I bought a bunch. And I opened them all, because it's my birthday weekend. This is a new line called "Crystal-shine" - essentially see-through, but not glitterated. (I like these better than the glitterated ponies, even if my inner six year old keeps bringing up the issue of "If they're supposed to be see-through, wouldn't you see their guts?")

I got a bunch of new ones.



Including Lily Blossom, one of the pegasi that actually does show up on the show. And Caramel Apple. (I guess Caramel - who is a boy - and Caramel Apple are two different ponies?)

And I got a Rarity repaint called Apple Stars. And I don't know if they are swapping eye-styles around, or if I got an Extra Rare Collector Item Mistake Pony!!11!!! but my Apple Stars has eyes that are more like Applejack eyes than like Rarity eyes (Rarity eyes are not unlike Bette Davis eyes....)

Here she is with Banana Fluff, another Rarity-mold pony, for the comparison. The different eyes make her look childish, or naive, or perhaps a bit stupid:



Speaking of ponies, I did see the Season 3 Finale yesterday. I think Twilight Sparkle's "Everything will be all right" at the very end was very likely a message from the writers to the fans. While the episode felt to me as if it could have been (and perhaps should have been) a two-parter*, there was still the old cleverness and wonderfulness there. (One of the best lines? Shining Armor's "It's liquid pride" near the very end, when Twilight asks him if he's crying). And if I'm not mistaken, I spied Derpy Hooves a couple of times! So maybe she'll be back next season as our favorite Easter egg pony in each episode. (That was always such great fun, the whole "Where's Derpy?" bit.)

(*I would have liked to have seen more time devoted to each of the Mane Six having to recover her destiny, more detail of how Twilight figured it out, and more detail of the "coronation." But you can't have everything.)

I am, for now, willing to assume that the rumored humanization of the ponies is perhaps an elaborate hoax being perpetrated on the fans, despite the fact that it apparently showed up in an industry publication....I can't quite believe Hasbro would be so dumb as to undo the fanbase for their best and most popular show. Or, that IF they do it, it will be as a separate show that I can, as I said, ignore the existence of.

(Also, there's a "Most Interesting Ponies in the World" ad running on Hub right now, which ends with the tagline, "Stay pony, my friend." I will if you will, Hasbro.)