Midnight whispers

Do your quilt projects talk to you in the middle of the night?  Sometimes I just have to attack a pile or project or idea just so I can rest and not think about it.

While I am lazily close to putting the finishing touches on Charlie's Redo, or Charlie's quilt x 2, or Charlie's quilt again,  I just have a few wing tips and the cockpits to reattach and then can move on to the borders.   Again.  And I've decided it has to be quilted by a long arm quilter.  I hate to do it but I know I won't be able to do by hand what I want the finished quilt to be. 

In the meantime this week I broke my cardinal rule of not being inside sewing at a machine on a beautiful day.  There were two things that needed attention, needed to be off my list, out of my brain and at least look like something. And I'm giving in to the things I just couldn't cut...till now.

You all remember this, right?  I loved it and even though I'm not really a Halloween person I am sorta a witch.  My goodness.  I even have a cauldron and a glass eye that's been handed down to me and all of my kids' baby teeth in a jar.  In my grand-daughter's' eyes, I qualify.

But you can't just cut this up.  You have to feature it.

So, I fussy cut some economy squares (this is for you, Robin!) and bordered the family in pinks and blacks.

It kind of looked like portraiture as I laid them out while finishing each one.  That told me to stop right there and arrange them

I wasn't going to stand on a chair for this photo nor was I going to arrange them again on the floor because I finally liked the layout of this photo wall look.  The little girl in dots on the upper left is going to have a small pencil thin darker pink outlining her so she shows up better.  I have no idea what I'll do with it when I finish it but I feel better about the use of the fabric. It does kind of look like a family photo wall.

Then, I happened on some string squares I made ages ago.  Time to get them off the shelf.  I don't plan string squares, I just pull fabric out of the pile and put them down.  Same with arranging them later because there is no reason to them.  

I put them together and discovered there really weren't that many and it was too small and I don't have any babies coming up to make it a crib quilt so I put a big flowery border around them and I like it.  And now these are not speaking to me any longer.   This has to wait for a trip to the store for batting and that's ok, it's way far down the line to be quilted anyway. 

I've quieted the midnight whispers.