...What a Rush!

Remember the song by Crowbar, "Oh, What a Feeling! What a Rush!" ? This week I experienced both meanings of the word "rush" - a hectic week of meeting a deadline, and the exhilaration of finishing the task. I had a week to design and sew for International Quilt Market/Spring to showcase some of the new fabric lines from Benartex. In such a time frame, there is no room for a redo or mistakes so whatever you go with, you're committed. Snap decisions needed to be made on what colour goes where for best effect: Never one to take the easy route, some of the blocks involved curved seaming,

...binding strange angles and inside curves...
...and matching stripes in the fabric pattern. All of the projects required bias binding for their funky shapes. I do like odd-shaped quilts.

It was a wild week with fabric flying everywhere. Sometime mid week, I lost my pin cushion and didn't want to take the time to stop and look so soldiered on with about 6 pins. I conscripted the household into helping. Eldest son did the computer work and made simple fabric labels for the backs, as well as the shipping labels and paperwork required to ship the package through U.S. Customs.

Just to add a bit of drama to the week, youngest son's contribution was to arrive home with nasty cold germs from school. We limped along a bit slower because of that, but just as determined. Murphy's Law also dictated several other technical difficulties which were dealt with as best as possible. When the UPS man left yesterday afternoon, he took with him 3 completed quilts headed for the Benartex booth in Minneapolis. In hindsight, I would change up some of the colour placements and design decisions, but under the circumstances I am happy with the results.

As per my post on Quilter's Net earlier this week, my reward for finishing was to order the latest Chuck Palahniuk novel, Tell-All. In the aftermath of cleaning up, I found my pincushion buried under a pile of bindings. All is well.

"Oh, What a Feeling! What a Rush!