Design Wall Monday

So it occurred to me the other day, how much I look forward to having something to post on "Design Wall Monday".   There are days that I daydream that those reading will "ooooh" and "aaah" at my progress as my current hand-applique quilt grows and grows.   Who gets excited about Mondays....really??!  Well I was...I am!  I had been planning to start this quilt for almost 2 years now.  All the gorgeous fabrics have long been purchased.   Three of my "besties" agreed to meet on a Bi-Monday interval and keep each other motivated to keep the hand-work alive!  Myself and two others are all making the same quilt.  Different fabrics, different embroidery stitches, perhaps even different settings in the end.  The fourth friend has taken on a quilt pattern that has SOOOOOOO many pieces, my eyes cross just thinking about preparing for it!  Hers has 4 HUGE blocks with lotsa stuff in it.  The other three of us - 36 blocks, or something crazy like that, but few enough pieces in them that we get to have a feeling of accomplishment a little more often.

Session one....we set out together to get the background cut, pieces traced, vinyl map drawn up and start pinning the pieces.   I think we were lucky to have 10 stitches done by the end of the night.  Now we have an applique "GURU" in our mix mind you....and we are trying to accomplish her 30 some years of experience into a 4 hour session.   Nothing wrong with shooting high right?   One thing I did notice...was that our "GURU"....had a pretty shnazzy pair of glasses she was wearing that clipped perfectly onto her existing glasses, and had absolutely NO shame in how they looked.   I chortled our age differences and she just smiled knowingly.   Didn't think much of it at the time.....

Session two...all but the "GURU" is pretty much behind.   I am the task-master of course....coming up with outrageous goals for homework for people that are so completely new to the technique.   They whined, I pressed on..  failing at keeping up myself.    Well....participant #2 suddenly stands up, goes upstairs and comes back down shortly thereafter.   Flops back into her chair and with a 10 second flush to her cheeks announces...."I don't care how silly this looks, I can't see anything!"...with that, she slips a second pair of glasses on over her existing glasses and starts moving faster with her applique.....  I giggled....made another age reference and went back to work...   My "besties" are used to my teasing about our age difference.

Session three....   I'm the only one behind for the most part.  And I talked them all into this!!   I ponder my excuses.  I decide the best one to reveal is that it has been raining most of the week and I have found that I only enjoy working on this project outside, mid-day, in broad sunlit daylight.   So yeah...it's mother nature's fault!    Participant #3 joins us again this session.     After cutting and tracing and a bit of ironing, she nestles into her seat.    5 seconds goes by, and she's rummaging through her bag.   Woah!  Those are some glasses!  They look like jewelers peek-holes with a nose bridge.   I decide again the age reference cracks and just snicker.    They all snicker back.    Not more than 15 minutes go by and she blurts "hope this doesn't bother anyone - just let me know"...and a LIGHT is BEAMING out of the jeweler glasses!!!   We all burst out laughing.    This time, I'm pretty certain they are laughing at my vanity.   <grin>

SO......here's MY submittance for "DESIGN WALL MONDAY".    Ohh baby!   I've aged 20 years putting these puppies on....but I can SEE the stitches now!!!  (smacking forehead).  +2.0 I'm supposed to tell you all.    I like to think that I got a version upgrade!  Jan + Reading Glasses = Jan 2.0!   HA!

Tune in next week to see if being able to SEE your project.....might have something to with how often you work on it, and how much you enjoy it.    Consider a pair of reading glasses from your local grocery or drugstore and see how it goes.     I'll tell ya what...I'm sure eating crow this week  <wink>