Barbie Gets An Edge

It’s not really starting a new quilt if you are using up fabrics and pieces you’ve already cut, is it? It’s like using stuff up, not going out and buying something new?

I went to my box of scraps and thought it would be fun to do a quick pink quilt, you always need a girlie quilt when a new baby girl comes along and I had a lot of pink 2 1/2 inch squares to use up. I thought it would be fun to put some 1 inch borders around each one, just to liven things up a little bit.

It isn’t a quick quilt. The four patches were a piece of cake, but putting the borders on is WORK. And I know I am making it harder on myself, but it matters where the colors go, like different colors have to be touching, and they have to sort of drift into one another . . . don’t they? It’s taking a lot longer to put together this top than I intended. At the same time, I find myself enjoying the process, and isn’t that the point, too? I am not doing this like a factory, it’s supposed to be FUN, not work!

Here is where I started:

This is where I am:

I still have six more rows to go:

Here’s where I am having fun – you know how Barbie is all sweet and that sweet pink, mostly like Pepto-Bismo Pink, some innocent and light pinks, sometimes hot pink, but very very pink, right? But I am thinking about Barbie grows up, Barbie faces real life with all it’s thrills and disappointments, the good times and the betrayals, and Barbie shifts into some raging reds, some violent violets and some outrageous oranges – all full of pink, but verging on out-there. I’m having a lot of fun with it. It makes me grin. It’s not a baby quilt. It’s not even a little girl quilt. A girl has to grow into this quilt!

Al Fardan Quilt Room

When I was living in Kuwait, I had a wonderful view from my quilt room – I looked out over the Gulf. Directly below was a busy street – always something interesting going on – and across the street, a family park. It was a fascinating microcosm, and a wonderful aerie for a quilting eagle. 🙂

Now I am back in Qatar, in Doha, and in the same exact villa where I lived when we came to Doha in 2003. No view, but more space and great light.

I got everything unpacked except my quilting room, and then I got really sick. My friend in Kuwait felt sorry for me and flew down from Kuwait and unpacked and put away everything in my quilt room. Before she left, she scolded me, and told me before I start anything new, I have to get working on my stack of unfinished quilts. Yes, she stacked them up for me, and then said “just start at the top and work your way down to the bottom.” She said it in English, but it might as well have been in Arabic – it just isn’t language I understand.

She also sorted all my threads by color and application, and bought special transparent storage boxes so I could see exactly what I have. I felt both very wonderfully taken care of – and also deeply ashamed, that she should see all my flaws. I thank God she loves me anyway.

When she said “What is this box?” and I said “shiny fabrics” she just grinned and said “I have a box called shiny fabrics, too!” Whew!

I told her you really have to trust someone to allow them to come in and unpack your quilt room, it is like someone in your underwear drawer. It’s personal! She just laughed and said she knew things were not the way I would have put them, but it would be easy, a little bit at a time, to get things organized my way. “Like one week you can organize the whites” she said. . . . Ummm. Maybe she better come back – the whites are still not organized, LLOOLLLLL!

Moving away from Doha, and coming back, I changed a few thingsin the quilt room, but not much. What I really love is that I have great light, all day long, coming in over my left shoulder and from behind.

This is the books, teaching materials and reference books. Oh, umm . . . err . . . and the stack of unfinished quilts that I must work on in the background.

This is fabric storage (behind the purple and green curtain), ironing station and business station:

Even room for a drying rack when my visiting Kuwait quilting buddies bring me more of the fabulous batiks we love to use in our brighter quilts:

The hand quilting station, although we all love this chair, and it is where I sit to read the paper, work on my computer, draw out plans for a new quilt, or where my husband or cat sometimes sits:

My work table:

There’s even a bed that someone COULD sleep in, except that most of the time it gets heaped with projects I am working on.

I also need to show you the Quilting Assistant Station:

I love this room!