A Paintbox Quilt
I finished another quilt this weekend. This time a baby quilt for my cousin and his wife. I'd completed the top a long time ago and it was just waiting for the perfect baby to come along. I thought about making a completely new top but this one just fit so well with their tastes. It's backed in a soft green flannel and I skipped the batting entirely. It makes for a nice drapey, wrapable baby quilt.
Some of you may recognize this pattern. It's the Paintbox Quilt by Oh Fransson. The quilt-along information is no longer on her blog but the Paintbox QAL group is still on flickr.
Finishing up this quilt was so fun and brought up so many memories. I remembered the days when everyone was doing quilt-alongs on their blogs. I remembered how many blogs I used to read every day, how many ideas and tutorials and new fabrics were swirling around. It was a really fun and overwhelming and inspiring time in my life. A time when I didn't really create much for myself. I mostly read about other people creating things and it FELT like I was always creating something. But I wasn't.
I hopped around, one idea leading to the next. I tried a few things, never finished anything, never really made anything that came from my own head. I always felt busy but I never accomplished anything.
Then I took a break from my blog and accidentally ended up taking a break from everyone else's blogs too. And now I'm back and blogs are not the same. Some are abandoned, some are revamped. A few are the same warm, welcoming spaces I remember. I have come to appreciate those quite a bit.
I hear that people are on Instagram and most conversations and community events happen there now. Or do they? I don't know...I'm not on Instagram because I don't have a smart phone or tablet. And it's probably best that I don't. I worry about getting lost again.
I'm enjoying my little world right now. I have a few blogs I read and I peruse flickr once in a while. But mostly I'm just making things. Finishing up old quilts, coming up with ideas for new quilts. It's been really fun. It hasn't been overwhelming. I don't feel the pressure I once did to keep up, to make new things and write tutorials and buy fabric all the time. Now I just make things because I want to.
Things are really good right now. I hope things are really good for you too.
So true about the blogs these days! I'm never on them (or my own) much anymore. Makes me sad. I miss those days back in 2007-2010 when my whole world was practically about reading everyone's blogs. I couldn't miss one day of looking bc I got so scared I'm miss something! It's so different now!
ReplyDeleteI love this baby quilt! Another great idea of your's I'll probably steal someday since I tend to make a lot of baby quilts! :)
Hi! Long time no see.
ReplyDeleteYou hit the nail on the head about the blogs. There was a time when my whole quilting experience was about other people's quilts and other people's blogs, not to mention the desperate attempt to make my own voice heard in the din of the online quilt world.
Then I realized I couldn't do that because it was causing me serious anxiety and depression that was affecting my actual real life. There were even particular blogs that inspired a strong and overwhelming sense of angry envy. Isn't that wild? So when google reader was discontinued, I stopped reading. I purposefully didn't find an easy to way to feed my blog habit, and instead I just stopped.
But I think about you from time to time, especially when I work with scraps of awesome Christmas fabric that you sent me, or bits from our first Modify Tradition project. I ventured over here today to see if you were still doing your bloggy thing; I'm happy to see that you are.
Be well!