Take Me to Your Leader

Today was a most glorious day. Incredible sunshine. I went out and walked for two hours pausing only to take photographs. Most of those will wait for another day, but I wanted to show you this beautiful apartment building. It has such character.

This top bit looks like an observatory to me. I bet that room would be so cool on the inside.

I watched Scream this afternoon, quilted the boring bits in the vase on Blooming Horrors, and experimented with throwing chopped up Heath Bars into my Oatmeal Cookies. When I first tasted the dough I thought I was a genius, but after eating several spoonfuls raw decided, eh, not so much. They're fine, which is good since I'm taking them to a "dessert party" and I wouldn't want to completely embarrass myself.

Cheri asked if I kept a quilting journal. I used to. I was really good about writing down all my ideas, favorite quotes that would be great on a quilt, how much time I spent on each task of a quilt, how I could improve my techniques... I filled that notebook and then never started another. Idiot. Of course I do have my blog, but it's not nearly as detailed.

Here's a page for 2001:

See how good I used to be at writing down everything? I love that sketch for a little alien. I was working on a big Halloween sampler at the time. This is the block that I ended up making from that idea:

This little guy is an orphan. Sort of. He will have a home, I just haven't come up with it yet. All of my quilts are made in fits and starts. One of these days I'll have enough bits of Halloween that it'll all come together into a quilt.

I reread Collaborative Quilting yesterday. Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston talk about having a Parts Department. Making up all sorts of fun bits without having any idea of what the final quilt will be. That's pretty much how I've been working for the last 10 years. I definitely don't love or even like all the quilts in the book, but I'm a huge fan of their improvisational way of working. Unfortunately the directions in the book aren't that great, and on one page definitely wrong, but you can still get a lot from reading it and looking at Gwen's quilts in particular.

Here are a few of Gwen's guidelines:

Trust yourself. Your chances of making a remarkably good quilt are increased when you take chances. Make what you want to make, and make it the way you want to make it.