Quilting : Sewing :: Sewing : Quilting

My grand plan was to alternate sewing and quilting and I've been moderately successful in sticking to that "sew-quilt-sew-quilt" schedule. Although, I did sneak an extra "sew" session in when I sewed my last dress. (So, sue me!)

Quilting

The "Tradewinds" quilt top* is finally finished. The "old OCD me" would have obsessed over the placement of the blocks. The "new me" just grabbed blocks from the pile and placed them randomly. Well, not entirely. I didn't want blocks containing the same strip sets to be adjacent so I had to do just a little planning. But that's all the thought I put into it. Getting the corners to come together precisely was a challenge. That isn't obsessive – it's good quilting. Hopefully, I'll get better with time. I want to finish this before the weather gets cold. I think it will be a perfect quilt for cocooning under when I fall asleep in front of the watch TV. I have to buy the backing and batting next, so this is a good place to stop quilting and start sewing.

*Free "Tradewinds" and more quilt patterns here.

Sewing

My next sewing project uses one of the fabrics my daughter brought back from Morocco. The black and white is glossy, fairly stable but still silky enough to warrant careful laying out and cutting. Since the fabric has sentimental value and I want the blouse to turn out well. The solid black is a stretch twill. I also want the pants to turn out well because the next two blouses in my queue are meant to be worn with these pants. (Here comes the OCD again!) Just so I'm in the right frame of mind when I start this outfit, I'm going to take some time off and not sew anything. An organization I belong to is sponsoring a flea market and I'm in charge of the food table. It's going to be a busy week with little time for sewing anyway.