Sunday Pondering

I've just been visiting Esther over at ipatchandquilt. She has been working with donated blocks (and fabric) for charity quilts. Some of the prints that were donated date from the 1990's. They are high quality fabrics but not what Esther would choose for herself or her home. She's doing wonderful things with them. However, her comments and another group effort called Bee, myself and I, have me thinking about what I'm currently working on versus what I enjoy looking at or living with.

I have not yet felt the need to participate in the selfish sewing bee. I pretty much get to do what I want here in The Magpie's Nest, which feels selfish to begin with. It also pleases me to be able to make and donate quilts to people in need or worthy causes. So what need have I for selfish sewing?

Events yesterday have given me cause to ponder. The way things do in this life, one thing led to another and I am currently building another donation quilt. It began with blocks from my Parts Department, and since the intended recipient is a man I chose those blocks I thought were more manly in appearance.

The problem is that they are, for the most part, brown. And because this will be what I refer to as a puzzle quilt I need to make more blocks in brown to fill in the gaps.

Brown is not my favorite color. In fact, it is probably one of my least favorite colors. I prefer a more tropical palette, like these friendship blocks from my local quilt guild:

What made it so bad yesterday is that it's suddenly spring here. I worked on building this brown quilt, then had to run an errand out in the sunshine where I could see the flowering trees and the daffodils in beds and boxes around town. All that wonderful color and I had to come back to my little barren yard and deck and back to that brown project. {sigh}

If I had another design wall I could put those friendship blocks back up and play with them some more; take a break from the browns. But I don't, so I believe I will have to content myself with some needlepoint in happy colors. In other words, selfish sewing. ;- )

And just in case you haven't had a response from me to a comment you may have left on a previous post please know that I've read them and appreciate your kind words. Toxins and migraines have kept me from being more social again. (They've also kept me from putting even a few flowering annuals in the pots lining my back deck. Maybe I can do that tomorrow.)