Once upon a time, many years ago, a friend from Down South was visiting and I decided to take her out to Sauder's, a now-defunct store in Lancaster County famous for fine fabrics and finer prices as well as bulk foods. Yup. Just imagine: Moda yardage alongside uncooked macaroni.
While we were there, oohing and aahing over the best Civil War FQs we'd ever seen, a bus pulled up and spilled out about 50 Chinese women who came in and began grabbing up trims of all kinds. It was surreal. Forget the batiks and the Debbie Mumm; bring on the orange ball fringe and purple eyelet. Of particular popularity was a hideous complicated green fringe (and this picture doesn't do it justice); they just couldn't get enough of it. Bonnie and I were afraid to look at each other for fear our peals of laughter would damage US/China relations permanently. Finally, I summoned my courage and asked the friendliest-looking lady, "What are you going to make with that?" She glared at me and snarled, "Rotsa Plojecks!" and that was that. We fled.
I haven't been posting much because I've been plagued since Christmas by an apparently undiagnosable hip and/or back malady (I'm scheduled to see my fourth medical professional in a little more than week). But I have been sewing! Sewing on rotsa plojecks, actually. The best kind of distraction.
If I've counted correctly -- and that is a very big if -- this here
may be the last of the hand-pieced Glitter blocks! So freshly finished it hasn't been pressed yet!
The Glitter pattern called for a huge number of blocks and because of the limits of my design wall and no designated recipient for the eventual finished quilt, I planned a smaller version that called for 153 of these guys. I planned about 45% black backgrounds, 45% white backgrounds, and 10% assorted print backgrounds. That wasn't what the pattern suggested; it was just what I thought would work.
It was just before Christmas (and come to think of it just before the hip/back flare up) that I began Glitter, hand-piecing in front of whatever Netflix was offering. And now two-and-a-half months later, I
may be done. It's been a lot of hand-piecing. And a lot of orange (not normally my color of choice).
Here's the entire stack. I'm afraid to count them! They'll go up on the wall as soon as the current occupant leaves.
This is the current State of the Design Wall. The end is in sight! Not that I'm feeling patriotic again (far from it). But I have to believe that
someday I'll want to fly that flag right-side-up again (yes, ours is currently up-side-down in support of our Ukrainian neighbors), and, besides, it's going to be a spectacular quilt for summers.
Just a few more seams and the main part of this will be finished. There are borders to be applied, but I don't have the fabric as yet, so it will all be packed up into a plojeck bag until I can get out and about.
The Philadelphia area shop hop concludes today. I'd bought my passport the day they went on sale, but it turned out that all that time in the car was going to be impossible for my offended body part(s). Fortunately, my besties were hopping too and they said that if I'd give them a color scheme, they'd pick up my FQs for me.
I think they did a fabulous job! This will all go into yet another plojeck bag until I can get the background fabric. It's a mystery quilt, and I'm not allowed to show you the pattern quite yet. But stay tuned!
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