I was talking to my mother on the phone the other day and I asked her what she thought about the new border I added to my Borders, Borders, Borders project. She had no idea what I was talking about and asked if I had just recently posted it, because she had not seen it. That got me to thinking . . . had I posted it? Was I just imagining that I had written a post about it? Had I even taken a picture of it? Hmmm. So, immediately after hanging up with her, I got on-line and looked and nope, I hadn't posted anything about my block. So, had I taken a picture? I couldn't have. The camera had been in the car for about a week or more and I had just brought it in the day before and it was still downstairs. Life has been so crazy busy for me since school started that there are some weeks I just operate in a day to day mode. Do you ever have a life like that? I was just working from one deadline date to the next.
After school one day, I had a teacher ask me to do something 4 weeks in advance and I told him I couldn't even think about it or discuss it with him until I had made it through the next two weekends. At the time, I just knew if I had one more item added to my plate, everything would crumble and fall and I would go bonkers. I can usually multi-task pretty well, I think most of us can, but how many things can you juggle at one time? That is the million dollar question. When he asked me to do that one thing, I was juggling about 11 different things and I just knew, that twelfth item would tip the balance for me. I knew if I could put him off for a week or two, things would come together, I would finish up two huge weekends of quilt show and quilt retreat and then I would only be juggling 3 or 4 items. Then, and only then, could I sit down and discuss with him what he needed me to do. Luckily he kind of understood and was patient with me and waited until I had time. Well, life hasn't slowed down much at all, I have had to totally get one item off my plate - I wasn't enjoying doing it so that was a fairly easy decision - and two more things are coming to an end this week so I am looking forward to some peaceful easy living in my future. (Who am I kidding? I teach High School. There is always something else coming around the corner to be put in the air and juggled)
Anyway, that is a long and rambling road to get to my picture of my Borders project. This months assignment was to add a border using "squares". I had planned on putting squares on point and doing a border all around with those. After making and vetoing that, I decided to put large 4 inch squares around the border. I cut out my squares and put them on the design wall and . . . nope. It didn't look right. I didn't have time for this nonsense of making a border and then not wanting to use it, so I left it right there and knew I would get back to it - left it spinning up in the air. I knew I wanted to bring in more color, I didn't want to add anymore black or gray or white, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do that yet. Sometimes you just have to sleep on it (and sleep on it and sleep on it) until the right solution pops in your brain. That's what happened with this one. A nice scrappy 4 patch border in just the warm colors from the middle block except for the yellow. I didn't want to put any yellow in this border. I wanted a really warm border to contrast the cold and shocking border with the black and gray/white half squares I added last month. I will put some more yellow in the quilt, because it needs more yellow, I just didn't want any here. I know some of those squares look golden from this picture, but they are really an orange print.
I am liking the look so far and know that if I want a larger quilt, I am going to have to make the next couple of borders larger or even put this on point this next month. I will have to wait until Saturday to find out what our next border must have in it. The block that is in the lower left corner of this picture is the other quilt I am working on in the Borders challenge and it still needs a border with squares, but I can't find the fabrics for that block. I have them somewhere, but they are not where I thought I put them. Therefore, this one isn't ready to be shown this week at our meeting. Or here on the blog. That's okay, I am an over achiever anyway - according to the group - doing two quilts. It is all because I started with the one in the lower left corner and had planned on using it for my project, but ran out of background fabric so I made the other one. Since we started, I have found another fat quarter in my stash of the background fabric, pulled it all out and put it together somewhere safe. I just have to find where that safe place might be so I can work on this quilt. juggle, juggle, juggle. The good thing is, I had already put a border with triangles on it when I started it so I will only be one month behind instead of two. sigh.
Okay, this is the next thing I wanted to show. If you read my previous posting, you know I am in a block exchange group. November is my month and I chose the Goose in the Pond block. I made one block to show in a tutorial and yesterday while watching football I made two more (You are asking - is that all? two blocks all day? I also took a nap, did a couple loads of laundry, played with the dogs -my day wasn't all about making those two blocks). I almost have two more made tonight, but I still need to square up all the half square triangles, but I can do that tomorrow night during the Voice. I have set the blocks I have made on point to see what they would look like and then in a row. I can't wait to start getting some of these from the ladies to put on my design wall and play with. I may want to sash them with colored cornerstones. Stay tuned and see how this one evolves. Oh, yes, for those of you who are wondering, my mother lives about 11 hours away from me in a totally different state and she sees what I am making only if I post it on my blog or when we find the time to Skype. (I know, some of you are thinking, 11 hours, of course you are going to be in a different state, but I can drive 11 hours from here and still be in Texas. Actually I can drive more than 11 hours and still be in Texas. It's huge ya'll!!)
You scored a homerun on the squares border!
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