A Play Day

First . . I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings about my post on kits. I really am not opposed to kits and probably wouldn't have a clue if something was made from a kit or not, unless it's one of the ones that you see everywhere! I'd probably not buy a kit because I never get things right the first time and I'd be up a creek if I messed up and ran out of fabric. My point from yesterday is probably that I have so much fun playing with EQ and then digging through the stash, that in my opinion, those who only make quilts exactly like those they see in books/magazines are missing half the fun but . . that's the part I think is fun. Thankfully, not everyone is like me! :) OK . . enough of that. Make any quilts you want to make . . just have fun! I have been so busy making quilts but for the most part, the fabric choices were not necessarily ME. It was about this time last year that I signed the contract for the book and just off the top of my head, these are the quilts I've made in the past 12 months:

• 22 quilts for the book - I like all the colors I used but I was trying so hard to get a nice variety, and most of my favorite colors aren't really what would appeal to anyone else. Ten of these are quilted, twelve remain to be quilted.
• 4 quilts for two patterns - These are always done in colors that will hopefully attract buyers, again not necessarily what I would choose.
• Two heart quilts for the American Quilter magazine - I was able to choose the colors.
• Two quilts - one of which is scheduled to be in the American Quilter project issue. The second one was to test the pattern before I cut the fabric that was to be used for the magazine quilt.
• Two quilts for the November Evansville tornado victims.
• A baby quilt for a lady who had a personal crisis during Hurricane Rita. I also sent her a quilt but it was one I already had made.
• The quilt for my uncle - I had it started and it matched the backing fabric I wanted to use.
• One for the Mission of Hope Project.
• One for the Quilt of Valor mystery.

That's 36 quilts and only a couple of them were quilts that allowed me to get in the stash and play! Chad was off today and he went fishing again, Vince is in Louisville at a woodturning convention so I figured if everyone else was going to play, so was I. After spending some quality time with the stash, I decided to do something with batiks, then I narrowed it down to using pinks, oranges, purple and lime green. Those are my favorite colors and I figured what would be better than combining them all together. This was a block that is in one of the quilts in the book and I've totally changed the directions for making it so I wanted to be sure I had it right so I made this block. Still not exactly sure what other blocks will go with it but I want it to be a two block quilt. The plan now is to make 18 of these blocks, all in shades of oranges and pinks. The center is purple. I have a couple of ideas about the alternating block but I need to get all these made first so I don't confuse myself. Definitely a fun day for me! Judy