Experimenting

It's the middle of the morning and I think I need a nap already. I have been trying to figure out the best way for me to do pictures on this blog. I read way too many help files and watched a 40-minute Picasa basics video late last night (yawn), and this morning downloaded Picasa. My brain hurts. Now someone will surely tell me there's an easy button. That's usually the way it works.

Since I have spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the computer and not a sewing machine lately, let's look at an earlier quilt shall we?


I pieced this one in '09 (or maybe late '08?). It's one of my first quilts. It came back from the longarm quilter a couple months ago, and I bound it and it's on my bed now. It's the Chunky Churndash pattern by the wonderful Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville. I have learned so much about quilting from her site and am so grateful for her generosity in sharing her knowledge and passion with the world.

This is a very scrappy quilt, and I love that about it. I love looking at it first thing in the morning when I wake up as the light is coming through the window. Much of the fabric was scraps from my mom, who was a talented crafter and seamstress, so it holds a special place in my heart for that reason too.

But this morning as I looked at this quilt, I was thinking about Gretchen Wilson.

See those blue and white hourglass blocks between the scrappy blocks? I had to trim each of those to the correct size, one by one, because apparently my seams were a bit off and the blocks were pretty wonky. I wasn't happy about having to do that but wouldn't have been satisfied with it had I not. So I grabbed my stack of blocks and my cutting mat and cutter and then went looking for some music to get my mind off the tedium of having to trim those blocks.

You ever have one of those days when nothing in your whole music collection is what you want to hear? So I'm tearing through the house, looking for something different, and spotted this CD in a dusty corner of my daughter's closet where she'd left it behind after moving off to school.

Now, no offense, but mainstream country music is not my thing. I like a whole lot of music, but contemporary country is not my genre of choice. However, I have been known to imbibe in small doses from time to time, and this seemed like the right time for a hit of Gretchen Wilson. Forty minutes later, with a good Gretchen buzz going, I was done slicing and dicing those blocks. About that time, my husband came home and asked me what I was listening to. Only it was in the context of: [OMG] What ARE you listening to??

It was pretty funny.

The ironic thing is that this quilt definitely has a country look to it, and I am perfectly okay with that.

Have I listened to Gretchen since then? Not willingly, but hey, I have to admit it. That day? She was there for the party.