Old Work, New Work

It's been a busy week of not posting but lots of work and pretty things.  And, of course, the Olympics.

My birthday thrifting goodies, freshly washed, hanging to dry.

Is there anything more beautiful than sun on linens?  I mean, textile-wise.

The stashy quilt is 99% done.  I have a few stitches to finish and fix here and there.  But that's what watching the Olympics is for.

I'm so pleased with how it turned out.  It's very much like I'd envisioned, except for different in surprising ways.  The edges are my favorite.

I was so pleased with the result and with the process that I've started another quilt project immediately, at great expense to my housework and social life.  Who needs clean dishes anyway?

This piece is for my mom and dad, to go at the foot of their bed.  My mom's style is different than mine, tending away from patterns.  Because I can't possibly make a quilt of all solids, I've chosen to mix my cotton prints with lots of natural, neutral linens.  Most of the fabric was from my stash, but I did thrift a few larger pieces of linen.

Linen skirts are always a good bet, yielding lots of yardage and minimal fabric waste.  The pink one had never been worn, probably because of the hideous 1 1/2 inch elastic waist band.

 
I'm using a simple yet very scrappy log cabin-ish block.  These blocks will be set inside of large, natural colored linen.  Kind of like this.

I'm planning to hand-quilt it somewhat elaborately to give it a sense of opulence.  I'm hoping the contrast of the simple, natural fibers and blocks will be interesting.

As usual, I'm learning as I go, discovering that the first blocks I made aren't quite right.  I far prefer the more simple blocks.  I think the larger ones are just too busy.  And although I had wanted to appliqué the blocks on by hand, there was just too much play in the fabrics.  My hand stitching looked all wonky, and not in a good way.

I ended up using my sewing machine, which gave me a more deliberate wonkyness.

There will be plenty of hand stitching, though, at quilting time.

I am feeling a certain amount of pressure in making something for my mom, especially something she'll have to look at every day.  What if she doesn't like it?  Will she hide it away and just bring it out when I visit?