Happy New Year!!!

Hi, guys. Happy New Year!

I finished this quilt top on the first day of 2012. It's made with a lot of the recycled clothing fabric that Nifty gave me when I was out in Seattle last summer, so right now the tentative title is Something Nifty:

So much fun to use fabrics that someone else has chosen. Nifty had a lot of orangy coral salmon colors in softer tones that I never buy much, not to mention the nifty polka dots and retro flowers. She has an inconceivable distaste for purple, so that came out of my recycled clothing stash, as did the yellows and bright pink. One of the fabrics that really helps pull all this together is a dark brown woven stripe with gold and orange in it. Really beautiful and rich, but not showing up here well.

I made this quilt with my scissors and a steam iron (and yes, the sewing machine), just sewing things together and trying not to stress too much. I didn't even use pins, although I know my machine has a tendency to sew unevenly and pull a bit.

I started by adding some of my own recycled clothing fabric to go with Nifty's - far more fabric than I ended up using. Made sure that I had dark darks and light lights - because contrast now is my big concern.

I cut a row from the fabrics I most wanted to use, just guessing at the width (roughly the length of my index finger). Cut a few pieces and threw them up on my design wall, to check I was on the right track and liked the proportions. I tossed a few fabrics out entirely and realized I needed more of the dark red.

I did all that to gain confidence, not to work on that precise composition. Would have been too hard. Instead, I just sewed bits together, making combinations that I liked. Lots of times I'd make the join just because the widths were the same. I made several rows of different lengths and found one I really loved and just used that length. Then it was a matter of joining rows to that initial one, walking off any extra length.

etc. I auditioned a row, stepped back to see how it looked. Auditioned several at a time, then sewed.

It was only at the end, the second to last strip that I added, that I ripped apart a few strips to create one with the colors I wanted. Second strip from the left in the final pic. (by the way, the picture above has the truest colors.)

Really loved working on this quilt. It went together in just two days and woohoo, I felt good. It was the first time I was able to sew without getting a migraine in months and months. I mean that literally.  I've been getting what my neurologist described as cervical migraines. That is, problems in my cervical spine are causing them. And that area of my neck is stressed when I sew.  But I'm on some new meds and doing better.

Yeah, so medical issues have been a problem this year. I have been diagnosed with Spondylitis by my rheumatologist and so far the meds I'm on for that haven't helped.

But anyway, I spent January 1st happily sewing with my good friend Kathy, who said that how you spend the first day of the new year reflects on the year you're about to have. I sure hope so, because it will be a great one. Hope it will be for all of us!