I have noticed a new trend on the interwebs and blogospheres… the WIP Wednesday. I had no idea what everyone was talking about… but I figured it out. Some genius (and I do not use that term loosely) came up with the idea to redefine the UFO and call it the WIP. You know what UFOs are don’t you… the dreaded quilting UnFinished Object. I hate that term… it makes me feel as though I will never achieve completion of those pesky UFOs. The last UFO I finally completed took me 10 years from start to finish… but it’s done. That’s not a fair timeline anyway. Afterall, I have written and produced 27 completed patterns and 3 books since then… so it’s just not fair to count all ten of those years.
But the WIP (Work In Progress)… now that is something I can really get behind. Afterall… I have every intention of getting to them. I will complete them eventually… and probably just in time for you to wrap my coffin in them. I like the term WIP and I like the idea of dedicating Wednesday to showing what I have been neglecting. So here is my first post (with any luck the first of many).
My WIP Wednesday accomplishment was to clean the studio. What? That’s not a WIP you say? I beg to differ. First of all, I have been meaning to get to it for quite some time and I can’t seem to get anything else done unless I first begin with that. Second, and probably most importantly, it is constantly getting messy. Every time I enter the threshold it seems that leprechauns were here the night before. Those pesky little mischief makers can really tear up the place… and the worst of it was all around the scrap area. Since that is primarily where I make my mark on the quilting world… in the artful production of scrap quilts… that had to be rectified immediately.
For those of you that have attended my lectures when I talk about my 1/2 barrel planter baskets… I wasn’t joking. They are giant laundry baskets full of “free” fabric (or tossed aside fabric pieces which is kinda like free). There are also some projects stacked in these pictures but you get idea… and all the little laundry baskets are back in their places from the last workshop. The serger… well he can’t look me in the eye right now.
Just like every time we clean up anything, we find stuff we didn’t even know we had. Very often people send me boxes of their scraps knowing I will turn them into my next project or book. I found a box from my mom’s friend Pat in Maryland who wrote explicit instructions to Mom not to open the box… and just hand it over to me at CWQ. God Bless Pat. She sent me a beautiful box of scraps… and when I dug down I found a special surprise.
Pat sent me a stack of pieces (the upper left) and a bag of scraps (the upper right) of Suede Look Hand Dyes. They just so happen to match a couple of packs of scraps I already had (which I also found yesterday). Look at all that beautiful fabric. I can’t wait to make something with these. Aren’t they gorgeous. I put them all back together on a place on the shelf that I wouldn’t easily lose. Many, many thanks Pat for the lovely leftovers.
After all that cleaning (one studio and one studio closet’s worth) I thought about what I could actually do for WIP Wednesday and the only thing I could come up with was… to start two new projects (in perfect quilter fashion). In all fairness, they are both projects that I should have started some time ago. One is a t-shirt quilt I was to make as a graduation gift for a girl that just started her sophmore year at college (I’m not perfect). The other is a baby quilt for a wonderful lady who has already had her baby and is now back to work (that one is no where near as bad).
Can’t show the t-shirt quilt yet… but I can give you a STUDIO SNEAK PEEK of the other. It’s adorable. I am very excited to see this one completed.
What are you working on this WIP Wednesday? Leave me a comment and let me know. For more WIP Wednesday accomplishments check out Freshly Pieced.
~Happy Quilting.