A Prairie Home Quilts

This week for her “Let’s Talk” Tuesday post, Mrs. Goodneedle of Strawberry Patch Quiltworks asked, “How do you decide where to spend your quilting time?”

For me, the simple answer is: By looking at my lists!

I guess the truth is that nowadays many of us are on sensory overload when it comes to quilting projects.  Between blogs, quilting magazines and patterns in quilt shops, one could easily have a To Do Project List to last through eternity. There are new techniques to try and fun ideas gathered while blog hopping. For every fabric line there are patterns designed to entice you to buy the complete FQ package plus a layer cake, honey bun, jelly roll & whatever other kind of sweet-treat-food-name the fabric manufacturers have dreamed up!  Then there are the magazines with projects galore and oh, the books.  How could I forget the books?  I can do without the patterns; I can do without the magazines. I can get carried away thinking I’m going to do all the free BOMs offered on blogs, but eventually I come to my senses there too.  Quilt books are the one thing I can’t resist. But if I’m totally honest with myself, I have way too many ideas pouring out of my own head so I shouldn’t be tempted by patterns, magazines and books!

I do make lists of my projects; and I like to work on 5-6 projects at a time so that whatever part of the quilting process I feel like doing, I usually have a quilt at that stage that needs to be done. All I have to do is pick up that project.  Usually I can finish those same projects one right after the other and feel really accomplished.  Mrs. Goodneedle’s question got me thinking about the following:

1) I needed to figure out why I was feeling like I wasn’t accomplishing as much as I wanted to/use to accomplish.
2) I wanted to figure out what I needed to purchase next for some upcoming projects.
3) I needed to revamp my lists to see just where I was with what I want to accomplish in the next 6 months.

So I listed all my current WIPs and all my design ideas.  Then I fainted.

It amazes me that I had a list with 63 projects on it!  I’m sure for some of you that’s a piddley amount; but for me, it’s humongous.  How did it get so out of hand??  As a result, I broke my list down into different categories based on whether it was just an idea, fabric had been purchased or fabric had been cut & sewn.  While I was doing this I found out why I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing that much.  It’s because 9 of my WIPs are long-term projects–projects that will take a year or more to complete because I’m hand piecing and/or hand quilting it.  (D-uh)  Then there are all the design ideas.  There’s 30 of those. Am I hopelessly addicted to EQ?  (I do love EQ!)  Anyway, they also need a separate list because experience has shown me that sometimes they stay ideas for a long, long time and some never amount to anything.  That brings my current WIP list to 24 projects.  Okay, so now I can breathe again.

Tea Totes.  A recently finished project.

I’m working on getting the tutorial for these up on the blog by this weekend. I used Inklingo to print the 3″ Drunkard’s Path templates directly on the back of my fabric to make these.  I’m hoping that finances will allow me to purchase a set of Marti Michell’s DP templates soon so that I can give the fabric requirements for those as well because I realize not everyone is on friendly terms with their computer and/or printer.  However, that may be a month or more away when all things “financial” are considered. . .