I woke up this morning (at 2:00 a.m., with visions of Boxing Day Sew-In dancing in my head) with the realization of the projects I really should tackle on BDSI. Since I'd like to honor the origins of Boxing Day, a day of charitable giving, by encouraging folks to consider doing a donation project at some point during the day, I realized I had the perfect projects sitting in a plastic back in my sewing room.
You may recall my previous adventure doing five donation quilts last year--unfortunately, they weren't the kind of projects that inspired me with the joy of giving. Rather, they were teeth-gnashing, hair-tearing-out kinds of projects. But I did celebrate when they were done (
completed projects here) and I was thrilled to know they would be going for a good cause in our area. However, I became haunted by the project (check out
this blog entry for the continuing story) and got another pieced top from the same fabrics several months later. So now, merely a year later (!), this has become BDSI Project #1. Fortunately, this one doesn't look as tricky as the other ones were, and having done a few of these now, I think I'll know how to tackle it most effectively.
All I have to do is find backing and batting (both from my stash). I'll probably just grid quilt it. It's an odd shape--it'll work for a very, very,
very tall baby.
BDSI Project #2, if #1 doesn't do me in and doesn't take too long, will be a donation quilt challenge of sorts from my guild. We had a boatload of donated fabric, blocks, and scraps from somewhere or other--I'm not sure what the origin story is. But one of our guild's leadership team divided it all up into packs and encouraged us all to bring one home and turn it into a donation quilt or two.
This is what was in my bag. There are two pieced tops, but neither is really big enough even for a crib quilt, in my opinion. So I'll either put them together for one big one, or throw borders of some sort on each for two normal-sized quilts. The one on the left has the last row of blocks pinned on, but not sewn on. I almost killed myself on the pins when I pulled them out of the bag.
The little star block on the top is a lonely little solo block. Haven't decided what I'll do with that yet. Maybe a pillowcase?
It would be nice to get these all done before the new year, wouldn't it? Clean slate sort of thing?
If I manage to get all those done--or at least seriously moved along, I'll probably be working on UFOs or WIPs. I'll have a lot of sewing time next week, I think, since I have the week off, so I'm looking forward to serious forward progress!
So--remember to check back here anytime after midnight Eastern time (US) on Monday, December 26, for your chance to enter into a bunch of great give-aways and fun mini-challenges for our Boxing Day Sew-In!
