Bento Box

It wasn't as if I needed another WIP, UFO or PIGS, you know. But, in fact, I did need one. Joe had a late meeting tonight and didn't come home for dinner, leaving me the happy holder of several hours of potential sewing time. But nothing in the current retinue of projects sang to me. The quilt on the design wall has been there for too long without anything happening. I badly needed a night off from the interminable knot-tying of the present Pre-K quilt. The hand quilting of Joe's quilt is finished (photo to follow this weekend, I hope). I suppose I could have dug out a set of blocks. In fact, I tried to. I had a dozen nice green William Morris blocks left over from Jaime's wedding quilt. I put them up on the wall and pondered them. And then I took them down.

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The last time the Mancuso show was at Fort Washington, I went with Honna. While wandering around the vendors' area, we passed a stand that had projects all kitted up. I picked up a packet of gorgeous Japanese prints and admired them profusely. But I'd already spent more than I'd intended, and put them back down. Believing I'd see a similar collection another time.

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Not to worry. Birthday rolls around and there they are! Honna had gone back to the vendor's stand after we'd parted company and picked up the packet! They were for a Bento Box -- I remembered the sample on the wall and looked forward to diving in. Alas, the kit was just the fabrics, no pattern, and although I certainly could have figured out how to do it, I never quite got around to it.

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A few weeks ago at our church Quilt Day, Kristina -- http://kdmade.blogspot.com/index.html -- was there with black, white and red fabrics and the Bento Box pattern! She agreed to lend it to me when her project was finished. When she did, she remarked, "This goes very quickly." She's right. Tonight, when nothing else would do but to get started on something new, I got out the pattern, got out the kit, pressed and paired, and got to work. The kit had 16 FQs, enough for eight blocks. I thought nine had more potential; and went to some left-over fabric from the Japanese quilt I'd made Amy and picked out two more FQs. One washer-load later, five blocks were finished and a sixth nearly so!

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I have a recipient in mind for the finished project, but will say no more since said recipient -- I believe -- is a blog reader. But that gets me to thinking about how much more satisfying it is to make a quilt with a particular recipient in mind. To think about her while cutting, to pray for him while stitching, to just more or less focus on that individual -- Hold him or her In The Light, if you will -- I really do like to make quilts that way. Don't you?