One of my jobs as mom is to sharpen all the pencils in the pencil bin we have in the kitchen. That's where we keep all our pencils - for homework, for writing things on the calendar, for making grocery lists, for secret twin messages and for what wee one calls "draaahhhing". About once a month, after fruitlessly searching the bin for a pencil with a point to jot down a number, I end up sitting down for twenty minutes or so sharpening all the little buggers on one of those stylish, cleverly designed but oh-so-very-not-automatic German pencil sharpeners. And then I have to take a two day break from knitting due to a giant pencil sharpening blister on my middle finger!

So pretty much all I managed this weekend (besides sharpening the pencils, of course) was to finally sew the labels on the neutral quilt and purple lover's quilt (remember them?!) and send them off to the lovely women I made them for. I washed the quilts before sending them, which was scary as hell, but they came out looking great with that old-fashioned wrinkly look that quilts have.

I used a pen to write the notes accompanying them.

The purple lover's quilt is all done and she's a beauty! I only hope that the recipient (who I am sure is no Price fan) likes it. I particularly love the backing on this. I really like having one large piece of beautiful fabric on the back, especially for a quilt like this that is meant for snuggling on the sofa and not for covering a bed or hanging on a wall.

All it needs now is a label and a wash (gasp!) so it gets that wrinkly, crinkly old quilt look and it'll be on its way. Into the purple rain...

Enough of this procrastination - it's time to put the binding on this quilt and get it sent out to its new home! For the binding, I chose a tone on tone, deep purple print that was in the quilt already. I wanted to frame out that blue/gray sashing and re-emphasize the purple. It is, after all, supposed to be a quilt for someone who loves purple. This rich purple works well with the backing as well as the many purple/lilac shades in the four-patches on the front. Lucky for me, I don't like purple all that much. Otherwise, it'd be very hard for me to part with this one!

When wee one is finished listening to a story or playing with a toy, she always says "duh!" for done. Now, it's my turn.

Mommy duh!

don't you love the hair clippie things that hold the binding in place?

I'm determined to get these two quilts (the neutral quilt and the purple-lovers quilt) done by the end of the month! The neutral quilt merely needs to have a binding attached, and when I say merely attach the binding, I mean that about 250 inches of binding need to be sewn down by hand. To that end, I flouted all the rules of knitting group and brought the quilt with me to work on at Knitsmiths! Thanks to my work there and in the last two nights, I'm just a corner away from being done. It will be the first large quilt project I've seen straight through to the end. I can't wait!

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A little later than I'd planned, but I've finished the quilting on the neutral quilt. It's all ready for the final step: binding! I can't decide whether to bind it in a beige, brown or maybe one of the blues. More decisions!

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Rather than choose last night, I jumped ahead and pinned the purple-lovers quilt top and its batting and backing together. B came over while I was working on things and thought how clever it was that it's called a quilt sandwich: "it's got a top, something in the middle and a bottom." Yum!

Yes, the neutral quilt and I are going steady now! The top is all pinned together with batting and backing and I've begun the quilting - just simple in-the-ditch stitching around the blocks and following the seam lines inside the blocks.

The neutral quilt and I will be spending every night together for the rest of the week. I'm determined to finish it up as quickly as I can, dedicating myself to it this week. But we all know I'm not a very monogamous crafter, so don't be surprised if cheat a bit with hubby's socks or wee's lucinda guy hat. And I can't help but flirt with doing the sew-along project for Sew Mama Sew's Fat Quarter Month.... I'm incorrigible!

Lookie, Evan Rachel Wood (never heard of her!) wore almost the same colors as in my quilt at the SAG awards on Sunday and it looked good (so said the E Fashion Police people). Very reassuring.

S helps by holding the quilt from his top bunk
click for a BIGGER version!

Alright purple people, what do you think about the background color?! I tried out so many different fabrics for the sashing and borders on this! Every one I chose ended up taking over - it was a pink quilt with purple blocks or an orange quilt with purple blocks, or, surprisingly, even worse, a really purple quilt with purple blocks! Then finally, a full five minutes after the store was supposed to have closed, we tried this teal-blue-gray fabric. It was stunning! The purple blocks suddently started to sparkle like gems in this rich bluish sea.

Arranging the blocks took a while. I tried to keep the same fabric from meeting itself either vertically or diagonally. Luckily, I used batiks so even in the few spots where they do meet, they don't match. Of course, there are many spots where different fabrics meet and do seem to match but when you look closer, you see that they have different prints or patterns. I took the most time arranging the little splashes of orange and the pale lilac (almost white) patches so that they would move your eye across the quilt. I liked the orange so much I even put it in each of the four corners and also placed it in the very center. And I just love how the dark purple patches stand out and form their own sort of pattern, dancing around the in the quilt.

I have to say that although none of this is exactly my color or my taste in fabrics, I'm quite pleased with how it's come out. I found a wonderful coordinating print for the backing, which is awaiting piecing right now. Tonight I pin and then it's time to start quilting!

click for a bigger view!

It's the top of the beige/blue neutral quilt! I spent this weekend arranging all the blocks and sewing them together with the sashing and I'm thrilled to see that it came out looking just as I had hoped. I'm working really hard to get these two quilts (this and the purple one) done quickly, so I can send them off as soon as possible. They are for friends and neighbors of my 90 year-old great aunt (I actually made a quilt for her last Christmas), who have been helping her out for a few years now, doing more and more for her as she's become older and less able to take care of her home and herself. I thought they deserved something as warm and comforting as the care they've given her, something that will last at least as long as the time they've spent with her.

I'm off to put together the purple one now... Hope you purple people won't be disappointed!

Okay purple people and non-purple people... what do you think of these?

These rail fence blocks are for a second quilt I'm making for other friends of the family, whose taste I'm not so sure about. Well, the thing is they don't really seem to have any particular tastes, no favorite colors, no specific style. Add to that the fact that it's a rather masculine household and I decided the best thing I could do was to go neutral. When I was choosing the fabrics, I was focused on selecting not too fancy, not too stylized, not too threatening beiges and blues. I'll be framing the blocks with a simple sashing of a very neutral but warm golden beige. I want it to be something that can lie around in the corner of a non-descript sort of room and just look like a warm quilt your son would thoughtlessly pull over himself if he got chilly. Neutral but nice.

If you were a purple person would you like these?

I sewed up these simple four-patches (there's 63 of them in total, for a 7 by 9 block quilt) in a couple of nights. I'm making a quick quilt for a friend of the family who likes purple. I didn't want it to scream purple - you know how it is when people figure out you like something and then every gift you get is about that and just because you like cats doesn't mean you want to have cat posters and cat mugs and cat brooches and cat plant holders... - so I chose these batiks in a variety of purpley tones. I love the splashes of orange and green in there too!

So purple people, are they okay?

(Want to see some more purple fun? Check out this video wee one and I spotted on Jack's Big Music Show yesterday.)