A project! A real project!

As the prospect of a very long long weekend loomed in front of me on Saturday morning, I realized that I had better stop all this nonsense and get a real, honest-to-god quilting project started. There were two reasons why this was of the utmost importance. One, because I was getting a migraine, and I have managed, over the last few months, to determine that my headaches are tied to my posture. When a migraine is brewing, I can be sure that I have been spending too much time with my head turned to the right. It's the way we have some of our furniture oriented with the television and the laptop, and though I can avoid sitting that way, it ends up happening if I am not vigilant about it. And the one activity that puts everything back in alignment and eases my pain - at least temporarily - is quilting. Whether it is the meditative aspect of the work or is just because I keep my head and shoulders more aligned when I am rotary cutting and stitching, or both, I don't know, but the dull throb in my head said, "Get thee to the cutting table," and I'm inclined to listen to the throb when it gets bossy like that.

And two, because a long weekend at home with my family means a long weekend AT HOME. I live with three of the laziest homebodies I have ever known; none of them would ever leave the house if they weren't compelled to, and usually the one compelling them is me. Saturday was absolutely beautiful, and Harper's friend Aidan was home, but I couldn't get her to go ask him to play because "he always wants to play outside." No! Quelle horreur!

But I knew one way to get Harper out of the house: a trip to the quilt shop where she would be allowed to pick out fabrics herself. I admit, it's a desperate move, but my only other choice was Chuck E. Cheese, so you can see my dilemma. I had a pattern that I'd been feeling wishy-washy about, but thought that since it uses a lot of fat quarters it would be a good project to let her in on and would give me something to do as well. This is the pattern:



Yep, another "Labyrinth." I guess I have a thing for mystical mazes. That or David Bowie's package.

Ahem. ANYWAY. One of the things I totally forgot as I was showing her what we were going to do, is that Harper, my darling girl, is a literalist. If she has a coloring book of a well-known cartoon character, then we must color that character and all sub-characters exactly the way they are depicted on the cover or in the show. Velma can never, ever, ever wear a blue sweater. It must be orange, and it must be the right orange. If you should perhaps be in a coloring mood yourself, and you ask her for permission to color in one of her books, she will narrow her little eyes at you and through clenched teeth ask, "Are you going to do it right?" Yes ma'am.

So, if we have, say, a quilt pattern, and there is a picture of the quilt, then we must - MUST - make our quilt exactly like the picture. There is no room for wild hares, flights of fancy, or any other freedom of thought. She's like a little brainwashed plebe from a dystopian novel.

We did our best to find 30 batik fat quarters that were exactly like the ones in the picture, though by the end I was pushing her to just "try" to pick ones that were pretty, that she just liked for themselves, instead of adhering like gum to the picture, and she stuck out her little lip and said, "This isn't turning out the way I thought it would." Sigh. Okay, sweetie. You can hold on to that big old stick up your butt. I love you no matter what.

I'm still unsure of how much I like the pattern, but it's great for my kind of quilting - which is to say, sporadic. I can cut up two fat quarters and make one block in roughly a day with the time I can generally wrest away from my kids, and that lets me feel like I am accomplishing something. Harper gets to make sure I am "doing it right" and that of course makes her feel like she is accomplishing something.

And this is what we have accomplished so far:



Not bad for a lazy, crappy quilter and her anal retentive daughter!