Prepping Projects

I have Friday off of work because I’m working Saturday. Finally, a day to sew to my heart’s content.

I know, I know. If I really wanted to I could be sewing right now instead of blogging, but here’s the thing… I’ve gotta prep first. It may sound crazy, but I can’t just pick up on a project at any time because, well, I don’t have them lying around the house waiting to be finished. I have to unpack everything, figure out where I left off and check to make sure everything is in order before I start. Okay, so this really only applies to quilting stuff. Fine, so it is just an excuse to not sew even when I really want to because once I start I have a hard time pulling myself away. There, now you have the real reason.

Allow me to explain a few things.

I am the type of person who likes to paint, but I find myself in the same category of painters as Vincent Van Gogh in that I won’t spend more than a day on a painting. Of course, unlike Van Gogh who actually painted stuff and then didn’t sign his work if he didn’t finish it, if I think it will take more than a day to finish I won’t even start it. Yes, that means my brain actually goes through the entire process ahead of time to calculate how much time it will take to complete. You honestly don’t have to tell me how crazy that sounds because I already am well aware of my own neurosis.

Before I start work on a cake, I have to make sure I have everything in order, or at least a general idea of what I want to accomplish. This includes all of the ingredients and any decorations that will need to be made ahead of time, which obviously requires planning ahead. However, I find myself a little more lenient on cake prep than others, probably because it is food and I read something very intriguing one time that said that people hesitate to eat something that looks perfect, so having a few minor imperfections will ease up on their apprehensions to just eat the damn cake. This is from a very well respected lady in the cake business, so I have since taken her advice.

When I’m quilting, I like to make sure I have everything I need to at least complete the front, but preferably the entire project. I like to look at everything all at once to make sure it will all go together into one cohesive product. Sometimes this will only take a couple hours from start to finish as I’ve done on a few of the baby blankets I have made, and other times I will spend weeks researching and rearranging and trying to get the right fit for the project, which was definitely the case on The Uninspired Quilt.

I also must apparently admit that this same theory kind of applies to me and chocolate. You see, when I get a box of chocolate, I eat it. Not like one or two pieces at a time, but I sit down (maybe) and devour the entire box. The exception is a double Whitman’s Sampler box, since it is two tiered. With those, I eat one layer, close the box, then eat the second layer another day. Call it a disorder or whatever you wish, but I love chocolate and hate to see lonely pieces sitting next to empty wrappers.

So today I am going to go into my craft room, pull out everything for The Uninspired Quilt and possibly even prep it for quilting. I’m just going to use the backing fabric folded over for the binding on the front, so I won’t have to prepare a separate binding for the project. Now I just need to decide if I want to go with my original plan of using a dark brown thread for the quilting, or simply use a natural color thread that will hide my sometimes erratic lines better? And I suppose while I’m at it decide if I want to hand quilt the insides of the blocks or just use the sewing machine for the whole thing. Ugh… I wish I had a box of chocolate right now.