August Recap and September Begins

In August I finished Journal for Joy - a scrappy eclectic glue book celebrating all sorts of things that make me smile.  

Holus Bolus, the first of the four Macnas series bonus quilts, was finished.

A stack of harvested Asian bits were transformed into a themed accordion journal.

Pieces and parts were cut, sorted, and pinned into pairs for Scrumdifferous.

I finally finished the long pending Squirrels altered book.

And the set of six reversible scrappy strip-pieced September placemats that were cut out on August 1 had their bindings finished on August 31.

Along the way there was also a lot of stash shuffling and editing, multiple donation boxes were sent out into the world, and the studio squirrels raised a ruckus leading to two more new quilt projects that truly need to wait until after the last three Macnas series bonus quilts are finished.  

And finally, continuing with my year-long series of monthly back yard photos, here is one taken early morning September 1st.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Most people don't want to be part of the process, they just want to be part of the outcome.  But the process is where you figure out who and what's worth being part of the outcome."

Scottie Pippen

The Squirrels Have Done It Again

The wide back on the left has been waiting in the closet for ages and the squirrels are on a rampage to USE what is lurking.  As usual, their one thing led to the next.

The fabrics above will be used to make two quilts - one using the wide back and the other backed with the black and gold paisleys.  When I thought there would be just one quilt, I had started calling it Color Burst - but when the second "sister" project developed, I needed another project name.

The wide back quilt shall be called HAPPIFY (verb - to make happy).  The current plan was inspired by Gerful (2021) and Vivacious (2016).  I'll use black on white prints as the alternate fabric.

The paisley backed quilt shall be called ENTHRALL (verb - to capture someone's attention or fascination; to charm or captivate).  At this point I'm thinking about making another version of Poppyseed's baby quilt (that baby is now nine years old).

All of this will happen next year, unless the squirrels keep making trouble in the studio.

Downstairs, I've switched our seasonal decor from July's "Red, White, and Moo" to August's "Back to School." 

With Young Man now in fourth grade (!!) our decorations continue to evolve from his ABC building blocks, crayons, and coloring books to classic black and white composition books, colorful pencils and erasers, a big bowl of scrabble tiles, and the like.  

And when I started to clean off my art table so I could drape the backing and top in order to roll them onto the pool noodles, I found myself drawn into the beginnings of a long-planned pink and green joy journal.  There is something deeply satisfying about cutting and gluing in order to turn paper scraps into a visually pleasing, cohesive something.

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The good news is that the drafting table is now clear and Holus-Bolus WILL be pin basted over the weekend.  

It's time to move those four Macnas bonus quilts forward.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Be the attitude you want to be around."

Tim DeTellis