I get so easily distracted. Quilt and sewing books, Pinterest, and other people’s blogs should be banned when I have projects that are already started that need to be finished. Thankfully, nothing specific was on the books as a “must-finish” project this week, and I went where my distracted little brain wanted to take me yesterday and today…to paper piecing!
Earlier this summer I bookmarked this tutorial for paper piecing a New York Beauty block by In Color Order. I printed off four of the templates found here, hoping that I might find some time this summer to give them a try. This, like most quilting projects in the past year or so piqued my interest, but fell to the wayside while I worked on getting ready for craft fairs and keeping up with my business sewing.
So, I guess here’s where I get a little distracted. A few weeks ago, a friend and I decided to check out the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild. I was a member of another modern quilt guild several years ago, but that one folded, and since then, I’ve been guild-less and feeling less and less interested in quilting. I know I incorporate quilting into my bags and pouches and things that I sell, but I haven’t made a real quilt since, oh, maybe last winter. Like winter 2012. But that meeting invigorated me, and I left wanted to do some real piecing and real quilting again. So over the past few weeks and days, I’ve been playing around with fabric again, working on some stalled projects.
So now that I’ve figured out how wonderful paper piecing is, I think I’m going to let those other projects continue to hang out a while longer. The process challenges my brain to think, and I’m in awe of what I made in the past day and a half. Tonight, after I finished piecing it and took it out to photograph, I sandwiched it up and debated how I wanted to quilt it. I know I could finish it faster on my machine, but I really feel like this quilt is bringing back my love to quilting, and I’d like to spend a little more time with it while I hand quilt it.
I think it’s alright to be distracted by what you love.