Sunday, July 31, 2016

Not part of the plan

I was not really planning to work on quilting during the hot days of summer. In fact, I have another piece I should be working on and have yet to begin.

And ... that is the reason I have 19 of these blocks quilted .


The project I should be working on is a banner to hang in the church entryway on "Rally Day" at the end of this month. The design was sent to me about a month ago ... some stuff needing to be appliqued on a yellow background. Within a week, I had gone to the local shop and found a meter of very pretty yellow fabric, bought it, and brought it home.

THEN... I began cleaning up the house to host my quilt group.

I was very careful when moving items to sort and organize them so I would be able to find them again. The yellow fabric sat folded on the back of the sofa since it was my next project and I needed the reminder to get it started.  So, what happened to it? THAT is a mystery I have been taking weeks to solve and I am no closer now than when I began.

I have taken every room apart and put it back together again. I sit with the hoop in my lap trying to think of one more place where I haven't looked. My house is NOT that big. I have looked in or under or behind every piece of furniture, box, bin, bag, you name it, and that bright yellow fabric is nowhere to be found. So, I sit and quilt and ask myself where else it might be. I honestly can't think of any place I have not looked.

The quilt top has 16 blocks left to quilt before I have to figure out the border areas. There is no hurry to get it done. SO....
Now I must bite the bullet and get to that banner. I am not going to go out and buy more fabric! It will probably show up the minute I put the last stitch in that banner. I do have some yellow fabrics and I will just figure out how to make use of what I have. I need a sun in the center and thought I would piece one with the giant dahlia design. I used to have a pattern that I traced from a quilting friend and used for a round table cloth. After going through all my files of patterns, I have not been able to find that either.

I have tons of quilt magazines and pattern books, so I began going through them looking for that pattern. Do you think I could find one? After several more days of sitting on the floor in front of my bookcase going through every book, not one pattern for the giant dahlia. Does this banner really want to get done?

Well, I am not going to go back to quilt one more block until I have this thing in progress. I found a pattern for a mariner's compass. Maybe it could pass for a sun design and I should just go with that.
Well, today is the day. Next week will disappear with Vacation Bible School. Five days of train rides might be productive but I just have to get started the minute I close this laptop!

An Ojiisan in the neighbourhood had a number of cacti with large buds.

When Norie and I stopped to admire them, he said they would open at night and probably in a few days.

A few nights later, I took Nikko for her evening walk past his place. As he had said, he moved all the cacti out in a row in front of his former shop.

They had just begun to open. There was a light breeze but just enough to make photography difficult. Still, I got this picture without a flash.

Nikko and I went back a few hours later to admire them all in a row.

In the shadow of the lamp post they didn't make much of a picture but they sure were worth the night time jaunt.

Yesterday I passed by again and noticed there is a bud coming up on another of the plants. Hurray for the "odd-one-out". There it sits with it's friends, waiting for it's one time to shine.






And, after seeing how much I enjoyed that hosta flower from my neighbour's garden,

two more flower stalks have popped up .

Everything in it's own time....
And banner time is now

with or without yellow fabric or patterns!
No more excuses.

Not one more quilt stitch until those pieces are marked and cut!

13 comments:

  1. Lovely flowers, down here not many out at all. For your sun, what about a circle or one with the centre cut out, then slivers that narrow as they go out, like sun's rays? About 10 maybe? Just a helpful thought. Can I email you with this if it helps? Hugs, Jean.

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  2. Oh !! Oh !!! Julie :-) I just returned from vacation and what I discover on your blog : a masterpiece !!! I love your quilt : it is just wnderful and so joyful....we so need joyful , here, in France !!
    Have a lovely week plenty of pleasant quilting times :)

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  3. Oh, no, Julie! How can a piece of bright yellow fabric just disappear? Was it by mistake packed away into one of the quilt group's bags? Together with the pattern?
    I double checked to see if it was among all the lovely green pieces you gave me, but no, it is not here. As for the pattern, if you just Google 'Giant Dahlia quilt pattern' you will get a lot of patterns on the internet. It IS a delightful pattern!
    Delightful is the right word to describe your neighbour's night-flowering cacti, too. Well worth taking a late-night-walk for.

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  4. How does fabric manage to disappear like that??? I can only think that it was folded up with something else or inside another quilt? I hope you can use the fabric you already have.
    Enjoy those lovely flowers.

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  5. I bet Nikko knows where that fabric is, and the pattern, too. Too bad he can't talk.

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  6. It's amazing how easy it is to misplace something in a small home. I can't count the many times I have spent hunting for that one item. Driving me crazy because I don't have that many places to put it! I am bad about laying more fabrics on top of the fabric piece I need only to find it has disappeared because I had folded it away with the others. I hope you find it soon.

    It is hard to find patterns again in my collection of magazines and use to spend hours looking for that ONE pattern. Now, when I find a pattern I like and think I might make in the future, I write the pattern's name and page # on the front of the magazine. That has saved me loads of time by looking at the covers instead of through each magazine. I also search online for free patterns like this one: http://kebaker.tripod.com/PatBlueDahlia.html

    Your nine-patch is wonderful! Love, love, love! the way the quilting adds life to your nine-patches. I think I might make a scrappy quilt with the two different sized blocks, but with less quilting.

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  7. oh dear ... hope it turns up BEFORE you start the replacement x ... the work on the nine-patch is lovely x

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  8. You know what will happen...just as you cut the first piece of your replacement fabric...you will find it. That is what has happened to me. It is strange how things disappear. There must be a fabric elf or fairy out there somewhere, who has thousands of pieces of misplaced fabric.
    Your quilting on your 9 patch is stunning, beautiful.

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  9. Your 9-patch is gorgeous!! And those flowers are so pretty! Seems like your YELLOW fabric would be shouting, "Here I am! - Here I am!" instead of playing hide and seek - ;))

    And for the banner - I thought of a "Dresden Plate" sort of pattern - that might work - ;))

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  10. I do love your nine patch and will be nice getting it done.
    I have too many things in too many places and I can't find things. I do keep them where I can find them, but I think Bill moves them and hides them on me, haha.

    Debbie

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  11. I see you have The Borrowers over there too - I've been looking for a small packet of photograph prints for months now - I know as soon as I order more that the borrowers will happily bring back the first ones. I've lost scissors and looked and looked for them - and then they appear in a spot I have searched over and over - those Borrowers are tricky ones. Love the progress on the quilt - it is simply lovely.

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  12. Welcome to my world! It will turn up when you are looking for something else. Recently I "lost" a whole double quilt I was putting in a show - I thought I had looked everywhere but my husband found in a storage bag under the bed where I thought I had looked. Sometimes we get so frustrated we just can't look properly. You may find the substitute banner looks better than Plan A. I'm sure it will be beautiful.

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  13. What a wonderful, complimentary quilting design!

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