wip wednesday 2026.7

 

i think i failed to mention in my last post that this blog is now fifteen years old. that means i've been quilting nearly a third of my life, which feels so strange since i took it up in my later 30's, well into adulthood. in the end, i will have been a quilter longer than i wasn't one. i didn't see that coming.

what have i accomplished in 15 years of quilting? take a look at my "quilt gallery" page to see what i've completed and my "wips" page to see what i'm still working on. the ratio is about 2:1. it’s not just about the finishes or the endless WIPs  it’s been about a whole lot of fun and learning and fabric and friends mixed in with a lot of mistakes and miscuts and frustrations. quilting has taught me a lot, given me a lot these past 15 years.

the opening photo is of a project nearly as old as this blog: my "london wardrobe" epp project. i began these hexagon-and-square-and-triangle wheels in 2013, planning to make 100 of them. currently, i have 22 full wheels, 2 sets of 3 interlocking wheels, and one middle piece complete. there are about a dozen hexagons and an innumerable amount of triangles and squares basted and even more cut, ready to baste. i have large cuts of a few feature fabrics for the backing and of the low-volumes for background for the front.

i took the project back out a few months ago to assess what can be done with it. i no longer have an interest in completing 100 wheels. i'm trying to figure out what i can do with the wheels i have complete instead. the answer to that question is not simple because of the state all the pieces are in. i wish i had it in me to keep at this project and see it through, but even a shortcut version is going to a lot of work at this point.

i'm still undecided on a layout. putting the wheels in rows will require making a lot of middle/half wheel/connecting pieces. making more interconnecting cogs for one big slab will require more work than i even want to think about. there's no quick fix way out of this mess. 

what am i to do?

maybe i just set it aside until such a point in my life as i have the motivation and time to keep making it into something like i originally planned?

the only reason i'm even thinking about it is i'm a little "tired of pink" at the moment and needed a distraction.

i'm not truly tired of pink - just tired of blogging about it. the only thing i get done these days is a few more stitches on "pinky stinky" edna, which is turning this blog into a play-by-play in pink. who wants to keep reading that?

as wednesday approaches and i haven't done any new quilting, i think to myself, "i need to go quilt a little so i have something to post." this isn't very genuine, on the one hand. on the other, it's motivating me to keep the project moving forward, even a little bit at a time. there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

i've thought of doing something else, but i need to get the pink thread off the machine before i move on. i'm really making myself stick to these wips until i get them finished, which is great for finishes but makes for boring blogging.

this week i put the star points on the pieces above and attached the horizontal sashing strips to 3 of the 16 patches for row 4. it was actually a nice break from house design.

as i was leaving the room last night, i noticed this bit of silliness above. i put the same star points on two consecutive pieces. the set on the right is supposed to be bird points, like the cornerstone block under it. that's going to be some work for me. upicking coming right up!

"pinky stinky" strikes again, which is to say, "hydee messed up again." 

and somehow i still make quilts.