Back to quiltmaking

After church today, I decided to do some sewing. I had a quilt top in progress - the design is called "roll of stamps" and it is based on the old Postage Stamp pattern. This one had been stalled for a while. I used a "jelly roll" of fabrics for it and there's not a huge diversity of colors or designs in the one I chose, so at first I was a little dissatisfied with how the individual blocks looked.

They are sixteen small (2" finished size) squares, joined together. At least on this one they are made by sewing strips together and re-cutting them, unlike the old-style Postage Stamp pattern where you cut a million tiny pieces and then sewing them back together.

But today I decided to power through (it's hard for me to reject an unfinished project. It may sit for months or years but eventually I come back to it). I like it a lot better now. I sewed up fifteen or so blocks (there is a total of 35) and I laid out all the remaining ones so now I just have to sew.

Next quilt top? I don't know. I've got literally dozens planned and probably enough fabric to make them all. I think the next one is going to be some kind of bright novelty fabrics; the more subdued fabrics in the top I'm currently working on, while it's pretty enough, is less exciting to me than bright prints.

(It's funny how my tastes have changed over time. When I first started quilting seriously, I was all about Civil War reproduction prints - fairly dark colors and subdued prints. Or 1930s reproductions, which I still like, but don't use as much as I once did. Now, I like a lot of the bright, slightly-goofy novelty prints, and I find myself drawn to some 1970s-ish colors and design (remembering my childhood, perhaps)

One thing I like about quilting is that I can use colors and prints I'd NEVER wear as clothing, but kind of like, in a quilt.

I do still do some more traditional or subdued quilts: one of my upcoming quilts is going to be a large-scale traditional block, with a star in the center (you can see it here). I'm going to use white as the background, and prints with a dark-blue background (I have a couple of snowflake prints, and a couple that are night-sky prints) as the focus fabrics. (I THINK I've accumulated 12, so far....maybe that should be the next quilt top)

And yes, I use them on my bed. I rotate them out - right now I have my "winter quilt" (snowmen, and it has a wool batt in it) on the bed, but in a month or so I'll take this one off and put another one on.

It's one of those things a person either "gets" or doesn't: I could see someone looking at all the quilts I have and go, "Why do you need so many? Why do you bother to make more?" but the thing is, I just like having them around. And I like making them. It makes me happy.