Monday, March 14, 2011

Contest time!

Despite the fact that I have several other projects in progress, I started a new quilt over the weekend. I realize that this is something everybody does, and I shouldn't act like I'm the only one, but it still feels like a character flaw. I have the same problem with books. I start one, and it's really good, but that next one on the stack looks good, too, and I've been looking forward to that one, and oh, I'll just glance at the first page - and next thing you know I have a stack of 10 books on the nightstand, all partially read. Having a Kindle has helped with that somewhat, as well as reading the most sinfully cheesy books ever written, any one of which I can polish off in 24 hours - and that's in between writing, cooking, eating, and shoving the kids into a closet so Mommy can have some "quiet time."

I had seen this tutorial on the Fabricworm blog, and having never done anything on point before, I thought this might be a good one to start with. The instructions didn't seem too obtuse (though I admit I only ever skim instructions until I get to the point where I actually need them, which is why I so often get halfway through a project and suddenly find out I was supposed to capture a live marmoset and hold it over my head while standing naked under a full moon and chanting the lyrics to Crimson and Clover) so I thought I'd give it a go. I had purchased a bunch of some nice dark grey Kona fabric and I thought I'd work around that. I kept trying to imagine what various color combos would look like matched with dark grey. Maybe a yellow/orange/red or various shades of green. Probably anything would have worked, grey being pretty much a neutral after all, but I am simply not clever enough or daring enough to try to make it work.

So I went for more grey.


I cut everything over the weekend and today I laid it all out on my sewing room floor, even though the floor was filthy. I vacuumed after I was done and had picked up all the pieces. If I had done it before, I would have been too tired to crawl around on my hands and knees laying out blocks, so I was willing to endure the dirt. As it was, I was almost too tired to vacuum after crawling around on my hands and knees to lay out blocks, but it really was pretty gross, so I persevered.

Here's how it looks laid out (minus the setting triangles):




I think it will do. If I can manage to keep everything straight while I sew it. It would have been better to keep it laid out on the floor and just pick up what I need as I sew, but there's no way I can do that in the child-free time I have allotted to me. And I also need to come up with a good name for it. It's not a sexy quilt, like George was. Grey Eminence or (Eminence Grise if I'm feeling Gallic)? The Grey Lady? Grey Poupon?

Hey, let's have a contest. I have 8 quarter-yards of the sashing and cornerstones fabrics left over (these are quarter yards - not fat quarters). The one who comes up with the best name gets 'em, plus maybe a few extra goodies. You have until Thursday, March 17th at midnight Eastern Standard Time to come up with the best name for this quilt. I will ship internationally, so even the visitors from Clackamannanshire and Hojbjerg can enter, but not in Gaelic or Danish, please. And remember, I'm a humor writer, so entries that make me laugh will have a better chance of winning (but there's a chance none of them will so enter anyway, even if yours isn't a gut-buster). Profanity is allowed, but not required. Winner will be announced sometime on Friday.