Working Slowly and Happily

When I was an EQL (emerging quilt learner), I focused on getting things done as quickly as possible.  Before I became an ardent hand quilter, I would make fun of hand quilters and remind then machines were so much faster.  Oh, how wrong I was. And oh, how I have learned to slow down.   I also have been focused on function by making only useable things, no art quilts.  And again, to my surprise, I have been wrong.  There's a Windham artisan fabric challenge for the MQG.  You see the six colors at the left.  Generous guild member Rob treated several of us to six fat quarters.  and not to sound like a broken record, but - again - I decided I wanted to play and began to think about what I wanted to do.  And then?  I spent three days looking at various web sites and using my scraps to make practice pieces.  This is not the way I normally work!  But it's been fun. I'm eager to get back to my notes and this project. Fabric manipulation is something that intrigues me but its not practical for quilt.  But I'm tamping that practical side down for what will be an art quilt. 

While I was working on how to manipulate fabric, I was also working on this Park Sloan backpack by Sew Sweetness.  It was a tricky pattern but I love how it turned out.  My niece has this small version but I am also making the same bag in the bigger version.  

Great niece Eloise is the perfect model and will use this as her dance bag.

That lovely set of fat Cherrywood fat quarters is almost a quilt, and I'm thankful for my design wall. It's like instant gratification before I actually sew the blocks together.  I just barely had enough of the light background fabric.  And I was actually two blocks short of fabrics so there are two improve scrappy blocks in the corners.  

Life's rhythms are changing. I'm working differently.  And it's ok.