I imagined this summer would have been filled with long, lazy days, but it wasn’t like that at all. First, there was my sister-in-law’s wedding, then we moved to a new home, and after refinishing three pieces of furniture, I dragged the kids to Montana to visit their grandparents, go camping and sight-seeing. After that, we all returned to Seattle, where more family came to visit. We had a birthday party, trips to the zoo and beach and a jaunt to Victoria, B.C.

So, with all of that, there has hardly been a spare minute to catch my breath, much less do any crafting. You can imagine that I rushed into my craft room the minute the dust settled and frantically started tossing fabric about, cutting and stitching…

After a year or so of working on it, I put the finishing touches on this quilt top:

(This is an old photo–I’ll post a new one when the quilting is DONE.)

All the pieces are stitched down, I did a little hand embroidery and added the borders. It looks really great (if I don’t say so myself). That was the beginning of the end, though. I got a little bit ambitious and decided to quilt it myself on my machine.

I did all right stitching-in-the-ditch around each panel; however, when I tried to get fancy with it and do some free-motion quilting around the appliques, I started breaking needles and my arms and neck started hurting like crazy. The truth came out. I’m just not cut out to manipulate something that heavy–at least in my present condition. I’m going to start lifting weights so I can become a better quilter (yeah, right).

So, I spent yesterday ripping out every last quilting stitch on it. I called a quilt shop and made an appointment to have someone stitch the quilt up on a long-arm machine. I feel a little melancholy about relinquishing creative control of it over to someone else, but it’s just not worth all the pain and frustration to keep going.

Today, I’m going to do something easy and fun–either stitch up the wide-leg lounge pants from Amy Butler’s book or make a cute little purse from Diana Rupp’s book.