I finished the top of my celestial postage stamp quilt. Hurray! I think I’ve only been sitting on this since 2002. It’s definitely been a lesson in humility re-cutting all the squares and sewing half of the quilt back together. It still didn’t come together quite perfectly, but will make a perfectly good throw for the couch. So, all I have to do now is get some batting and a backing. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll be ambitious enough to actually quilt it, or just tie it. I’m leaning towards tying, simply because this has been going on so long that it seems like a good idea to finish it as soon as possible.
Since I was still feeling motivated when the celestial quilt was done, I started to sew together the squares I’d cut for the split rail quilt. I’m a little disappointed in how this is coming out. I measured and pressed this what seemed like very carefully, but the squares aren’t matching up. Not sure where I went wrong. I’ve done split rail before with success, but never with squares this small, so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. I’ll still sew it together, but it’s definitely going to come out rectangularly skewed. Oh well. At least I’m actually completing the dang thing in more or less the same season I started it. I’ll give myself points for that.
And finally, I’ve been sitting on a pattern for a regency style dress for a while now. A friend of mine has an annual Halloween party – costumes required – and I’d really wanted to make the dress for that (I made a cloak for it a few years ago, which was fun). However, I just priced out fabric today online (as the local apparel fabric selection sucks), and I can’t get it any lower than a price I don’t even pay for an individual piece of my normal wardrobe. Now, I’m perfectly willing to admit I’ve paid well over this price probably many, many times over for the fabric I currently have hanging around this place, but never in one fell swoop. If I didn’t have to register my car this month, I think I’d entertain the notion of spending the money, but that’s definitely put a crimp in my spending for the month, and I know if I don’t get it started in September, there’s no way I’ll get it done for the party. So I guess I need to remember this at some point in the winter when I have some money kicking around, because I always have to register my car in September, so it’s pretty clear I’ll need to make this dress well before the party if I ever actually want to make it.