progress and resignation

 i'm home from my whirlwind visit with the mouse and back in the quilting business. the mr and i took our oldest daughter and five of her friends to disneyland for a day. they were 6 really well behaved teenage girls. it was way easier than taking our own 7 children! however, it was still exhausting with one day of driving there, 9am to midnight in the park (but we did ride everything!), and one day in the car home. i worked on quilt binding during the drive. when i wasn't sleeping most of the way home, that is.

despite the binding, it feels like ages since i last worked on anything fabric. the holiday season just isn't allowing for much time. however, that is as it should be. i should be celebrating, not still working on gifts. i'll either finish the quilts in time or i won't, but i'm done with letting the quilts take over the holiday. with about one week left, i've decided to focus on my family and Christmas, not the quilts. i would still very much like to get them done, but i'm not going to stress about it.

my plan C (or wherever we are now) is to have all the quilts sandwiched and basted for gifting. i figure a basted quilt closely resembles the final product and will give them a good idea of what they're getting. to help with this, i opted to give spray basting a try. we shall see how that goes. i'm a bit nervous to try it, but i simply don't have enough pins to baste 3 lap quilts at one time.

last night i completed the 3 segments of strips for s2's quilt, "bandwidth." they are pinned on the board for the moment. (if you look, you can see the white spaces between them.) tonight i hope to get the large solid panels in place. i have 2 different navy solids: one flatter and slightly grey looking, one a bit more vibrant. still debating on this, but it'll be decided soon enough.

i'm feeling somewhat better about how it's looking now that i have the strips pieced. i think the breathing room of the solid panels will really help calm it down. the fact that my oldest son has twice now asked if this is his quilt and been disappointed that it's not also has me thinking maybe i've done alright here. "are you at least going to use some of the same fabrics in my quilt?" we'll see, son. maybe. that's another day and another quilt, though.