Two by Two and Doobie Doobie Do

My Mother always freaks out about what I do. "Lynne, you make quilts, you blog, you WORK, and you COOK." Yeah, well, I like to eat well, what can I say. So I got up yesterday and made some granola (because I can make it better, cheaper and healthier than I can buy it), then I cooked up some farro (love it in grain salads, which I will have for lunch this week), made two loaves of bread (again, better, cheaper, healthier than the stuff at the store), made some onion jam (great on sandwiches, pizza and pasta; again, part of the menu plan for the week), some sesame noodles, and then because I wanted something different, some salted caramel brownies. (Mine probably weren't cooked enough, but I never made this recipe before. Still they are damn good. I'll bring them to work and pass them around.) After I did all the dishes, I made the bed took a shower and then went into the studio to start sewing up the blocks for the Winter Whatever Quilt. Having done all that cooking ensured two things: 1. I didn't have to feel guilty for spending the rest of the day sewing; 2. I'd have something to eat whenever I got hungry. I didn't have to stop to cook. I do this cooking thing every single weekend, (obviously with different items) and I have done it for years. It makes the rest of my life easier. I'm not quite sure why my Mom freaks out about it. Later today I'll put a couple of lamb shanks on the stove to braise all afternoon. I'll have an easy dinner and leftovers for another meal this week.

Basically, I think (and plan). I'm always thinking. Part of this is making my life easier, so that's why I do it. To me, it's no big deal. I also love to cook, so for me this isn't work.

I started taking the blocks off the design wall, trimmed them up, paired them, and sewed them together.

yadda yadda yadda.

I have six vertical rows sewn together.

My friend the Selvage Fairy wrote to me and said this quilt didn't so much remind her of trees as it did ripples of water, even though she likes it anyway.

I do too, and the ripples thing works too.

Winter Woodland

Gosh, snow days are so much fun. I got up, made a cup of hot chocolate (I do not drink coffee) and went into the studio and got right to work. I started placing the black and white side triangles next to the scrappy slab triangles.  Yes, I placed one at a time, and none of them were random.  Every now and again I'd walk across the room to see what it looked like. I even - gasp - unsewed some of the darker black and white side triangles from their blocks and replaced them with lighter versions.

After another hour, I had filled up all the spaces. So I took a break, got dressed, changed the sheets, did the laundry, had breakfast and tinkered with my computer. (I needed to delete some unnecessary files and I ran a temp file cleaner. I was able to reclaim over 27 GB of hard drive space. Yay me.)

 I made lunch, made a couple of phone calls and then got back to work. I think it's a good idea to let some time pass between the time you think you have something good and the time you do your next step. So when you go back into the studio, you notice things you might want to change. I did see a few things that needed modifying, so I did that. (I removed one of the bright orange pairs, swapped a light pair and moved the purple pair, among other things.)

I spent the rest of the afternoon sewing the triangles and the side triangles into blocks. (Those half triangles at the top and the bottom will be trimmed away.) I do see something I want to change before I declare this the final version, but so far, I like it.

There's only one tiny problem, and it exists only in my head. I showed the photo to my son. He appeared troubled. "Imagine being in the woods in winter," I said, "the sun is shining through the branches and you see the snow and the shadows on the ground. You see the brown leaves on the ground where the snow has melted. Occasionally you see a bird flying through the scene."

"Oh! As soon as you explained it, I got it," he said.

Yeah, so that's my problem. I don't want to have to EXPLAIN it. As far as I am concerned the artwork should speak on its own. (Hence the working title, "Winter Woodland.")

Anyway. Time for another mental break AWAY from the quilt.

**BTW, the weather guys originally said we were to get between 4 - 8" of snow yesterday. We got over 13". This was the inspiration view about four o'clock Thursday afternoon.

 And this, after I did a bit of tinkering, and then undid the tinkering, and then tinkered in another area, is, I think, almost, the final version.