Packing Up

Hi guys! You really cracked me up with the comments. Which one: quilt or sweater? was just a rhetorical question (of course I'm doing both) and I didn't expect an actual VOTE. That was unexpected and really fun. (And I'm glad to see it was almost tied.) Thanks for participating!!

I have that periwinkle sweater well underway so will show it later this week. Didn't get much progress made on the quilt, but will show what ever I have later this week too.

Didn't get much done over the weekend because I tackled two of my least favorite things, cleaning and taxes. Then yesterday, I spent the majority of the day doing this:

Packing up eight quilts for the Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival. These are for the special exhibit "Pressing Matters" by the Chicago School of Fusing. I will also have one quilt (this one) in the competition portion of the show.

I don't talk too much about my goals because they are so personal. And I hate to have things in writing, because I reserve the right to change my mind! But I will say that I have made a goal to enter quilt shows again this year and to make at least one....maybe more than one....big art quilts again. It was good to take a break for a few years while this household has been so busy. I just didn't have the head for design. But I'm feeling the desire coming on strong again, especially unpacking and looking at these pieces.

However, I have to say that packing up quilts for shipping is my LEAST favorite part of the job! Clearing the space, getting them out and unrolling them, making sure everything is clean and looks good, making sure I have labels (oops, missing one....downstairs to quickly fuse one on), packing them up and fitting them into their giant boxes, getting all the paperwork done. It took me from 9am to 2pm--that's allowing for picking up and feeding a couple of kids somewhere in the middle of that. And I began to realize "oh yeah, there's a good reason I haven't been doing this for a couple of years."

I meant to take an "after" photo of the giant boxes, but I forgot in my hurry to get to the UPS drop site with three big boxes and two little girls, before it started to blizzard or I acquired an additional kid.

But now, all eight quilts are snug in a big UPS truck on the highway to Virginia, and I have some quilt blocks to attend to.....see you again soon.....