Insanity Prevails

Right now, things are a little wild and crazy around my house.  We are in the middle of getting ready for a major move...  We haven't moved now for 21 years, so we've accumulated a lot of 'stuff'...  Currently we are in the process of 'de-stuffifying' ourselves (I know that's not a real word, but I'm using it anyway, as it fits what we are doing).  21 bankers boxes full of books for donation, and we still have many many books to go through and sort out ones we can part with.  Oh, this is so devastatingly hard... Both my husband and I are bibliophiles and have been collecting books since the 60's...

Not just books though.  We are getting rid of LOTS of things!  Anything we can part with, we are letting go - donating, selling or giving away.  I have spent a few days sniffling back tears over what we are parting with, but I know in the long run, it's been a long time since we've used these things, so we don't really NEED them.

I don't think it's in an artist's nature to enjoy a move... We like the comfort of our usual surroundings and our studio space...  It is a matter of being grounded and knowing where everything is and how best to use it as it is.  I look forward to the time when I am settled in at the new house and ready to resume my quilting life.

Still among all the chaos, I've managed to partly keep up with projects.  A few of my block of the month commitments have fallen behind, but a few I've managed to keep up with.  I also took a class in how to make a Buggy Barn quilt called Crazy Eights.  If you're not familiar with the Buggy Barn method - it is a 'stack, slash, and shuffle' technique that results in some really fun quilts.  I wish they were still in business publishing new patterns.   Here is the quilt top I finished in this class:

It's a little bigger than the original pattern called for, but I don't like making square quilts when I can avoid it, so I added more rows to the bottom.  It needs to be quilted soon, but the top is constructed and just waiting for a backing.  SO much fun to make!  And to make it even more fun - I got to meet some fascinating and fun ladies in the class, so win-win for me.

We enjoyed sewing together so much, we decided to make class-night a regular thing, where we will meet each week and work on our different quilts - Either the same pattern or something individual, depending on personal preference that week.  Anyway - lots of fun to make.

I also did another round robin block:

 My contribution was the applique in the turquoise rectangles (trees/presents/flamingos).  The round robin deadline is this coming Tuesday, so I'm done in time, and I'm happy with the results.

WAYWO??