Thursday, April 11, 2019

Q2 FAL List

It feels rather small, or dumb that I am posting this little list today, on another dark day regarding the erosion of freedom of speech, when my heart is so heavy. I love to write. Love it. Always have. I have a deep need to express myself, work out my thoughts, be creative, not just in writing, as you know. Add positivity and beauty to my world. To be restricted in doing this would quite possibly break my spirit. To see and hear this morning that another journalist, Julian Assange, another whistleblower, (I'm thinking of Khashoggi) has been silenced is deeply upsetting (that's putting it mildly). I taught English, along with French, my entire 30-year career, and one of the novels I did with my grade 12s was Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which he wrote in 1953. He foresaw this control of the masses, by keeping them in the dark, keeping them fearful, filling their heads with meaningless TV and entertainment (he actually wrote about earbuds "seashells" before they were invented, wrote about reality TV, told of the masses being 'plugged in' 24/7!). Books were banned.

So I've cut and sewed my heart out today (hmmm), working on one of the Q2FAL goals, a quilt for a child who's been sexually assaulted. My hope is that a quilt can bring comfort in some way to an innocent victim. Who will speak up for innocents who are abused, beaten, killed (civilians), tortured (prisoners), if we capture, imprison, or worse, murder those brave people who do speak up?

I realize, as so many of us do, that quilts help to heal not only the person I am sewing for, but also my heart, to some degree. I think it is important that I mark this day, and each time when I link back to this post when I finish a project on my list, I will remember.



In some way the first quarter went slowly; in others it went zooming on by. How did I do as far as completing projects on the Q1 List?

Of my list of nine items, I finished six. That's decent. One item, the log cabin quilt, is remaining a flimsy and as part of my H2H contributions, it is being sent to Victoria's Quilts Canada, an organization who makes quilts for those living with cancer in Canada. They specifically want flimsies, 50X70" and this one is pretty much that measurement.

So here's the list to finish by the end of June:
1. Migrating Geese
I know what I want to quilt; I LOVE this quilt, so why does it keep getting pushed to the back burner? Same snowy pic from last December 2017 when I finished it:

2. Finish this cushion cover, which was also on my Q1 list, and which I did not finish, but I came close! I actually had it quilted and made a valiant effort to get it checked off, but it didn't happen. It just needs a backing, and then binding.


3. This comfort quilt, which is going to the Windsor Sexual Assault Centre:
I'm using one of Sarah's Rockin' Rectangles tutorials, 'Place Your Bet'.

4. This is a second quilt for the assault centre, again for a child.
These are scraps from 'Sparkle On', as well as a bunch that were sent to me by a de-stashing quilter.

5. Using some of the scraps above, the animal ones, I plan to make two cat mats again this year for either the Cat Cafe I gave to last year or another cat shelter.

6. This originally DrEAMi! (Drop Everything And Make it!) project, that got set aside:

7. A new quilt for Brady. I'm using the Cluck Cluck Sew football quilt pattern I purchased um, a couple try four years ago?!

Not totally committed to all of these fabrics, but I'm sewing from stash, with a purchased Minky backing (see below). Isn't it perfect? It's the bottom one (like I needed to clarify)...
Of interest is that I know I took a picture of a possible collection of fabrics for his quilt, and I spent oh, better part of an hour going through my Pictures file where I keep my blog pics. Couldn't find it for love or money. Then I thought to go back through all the FALs I was in. Do you know my first one was January 2015? Truth tea: two projects remain incomplete off that list...

8. This April challenge project for Island Batik, using the AccuQuilt Go! Cube dies. I am making a design of my own again (aiming to make my own every single month this year). It's one of the 30 Quilt Designs Challenge I'm hosting again this year.
It has to be a baby quilt, and I do love pink and yellow together, but part of the challenge is working with the fabrics they've sent, so it might have some other additions not shown here.

9. For May, we are to 'make it modern', so again, I'm not positive, but hope to use this collection which I just love, Twilight Chic:

10. And in June we are to try a new technique, so I'm either going to use this group of purples with a black background:
OR try something new with this beautiful rayon:
As for the new technique, I dunno! If you have any thoughts on new techniques you've seen, let me know in the comments. I've done trapunto, appliqué (regular and reverse), paper-piecing, (hmm, I've only made ornaments using English paper-piecing, not feeling doing a whole quilt though), stained glass, origami, and last year I worked with wedges.

Interesting! Nine (nope, ten, because I remembered the cat mats) projects again on the list. As always, I am sure there will be a couple rogue projects, either those DrEAMi! ones, or magazine or blog hop ones. I had two magazine ones (foof!) that I will be able to tell you about in Q2 some time, and a couple DrEAMis in there.

Nope!
11.  Thank you Roseanne!! Beothuk Star (duh!!) is also on the list to be finished for June 15 which is the parade of quilts! Here is my second version I'm making during the QAL:
For the pattern, simply click the Beothuk Star QAL button on my sidebar. I cannot wait to cut into these beauties, which are all available from Needle & Foot Fine Fabrics.


8 comments:

  1. Your list is sure to keep you busy! Love those pink and yellows together, of course a little green doesn't hurt.

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  2. Good luck on your list. Love your batiks. I just looked up your cat mat tutorial - yay!

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  3. Great list. What about QAYG for the new technique? There are so many variations.

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  4. Hi Sandra! Oh, migrating geese. Yes please, please quilt it. You didn't even list Beothuk on the list, silly goose. I'm chalking that up to being upset about Assange. Gosh, I haven't read Fahrenheit 451 in decades but it sounds like I need to reread it. I recall quite the discussions over that book back in high school - very eye opening to me to other completely different opinions. We had an excellent Literacy teacher - sounds like you as far as engaging your students. Oh, I wondered if you wanted to try half rectangles? It seems like you have tried everything already but didn't see that on the list. {{Hugs}} Happy Friday, friend. ~smile~ Roseanne

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  5. There are quite a few books I have read in the past that are scarily close to real in the present times we are living! I too need to go back and re-read some of those.
    Your list of Q2 FAL's make me smile. The colors and the destinations are wonderful.
    I need to start making lists of what I need to do/finish/start. Right now I am stuck on sandwiching a flimsy for a friend. I just cannot get the back nice and tight/flat to do the quilting right. There are so many projects started, that I need to continue on. I was interrupted by a couple of moves and then relocating my sewing spot!

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  6. You have a healthy list of goals, hope we both meet them all!!

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  7. So many great projects here. Also, I love Fahrenheit 451. I've ready it many times. It's amazing how ahead of his time he was. Good luck with your projects on behalf of the 2019 FAL team.

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