if I had all the time in the world…

I feel like I’ve lost my crafting mojo lately.  Maybe it has something to do with it being the dog days of summer, but I feel a little bit in a crafting funk.  Now, I still dabble.  I half-heartedly put in a good 9 inches of hand-sewn binding on a charity quilt at the pool they other day.  And I’ve been plugging away at knitting some of the world’s easiest dishchoths here and there.  But I haven’t felt engaged and excited about a project lately.  I miss that.

It may be, in part, because I am spending a lot of time in the kitchen these days.  I always cook, and mostly from scratch, but the 30 Day Vegan workshop really pushes it up to another level for me.  Beans, grains, sauces, dressings, snacks- and these things just to stock the fridge so that I can put something together come dinnertime!  I’m still trying to find that balance of eating and cooking this way while giving my kids something they don’t dread for dinner.  I love to spend time in the kitchen, but there are only so many hours in the day, and it is definitely cutting into my sewing time.

So, if I had all the time in the world, what would I be working on?

~ finish up Boy 1’s quilt.  I flew right through the quilt top, but I am doing a pieced back for it- and I am stuck.  I let him design it with the leftover fabric.  Here is what he came up with:

I don’t even know where to start.

~ a pillow based on Anna Maria Horner’s wholeclolth quilting project. I bought some Valori Wells Wrenly fabric (Ingrid) at the Sister’s Outdoor Quilt Show with this in mind, but it has not even made it out of the bag yet.  I think it will lend itself very well to this project.  I love handwork, so I am looking forward to this.

~ a Wrenly quilt.  I bought fabric at Sister’s for a Wrenly quilt, and I bought a pattern too, but I think I want to design my own quilt instead.  So, ideas are percolating in the back of my mind for this one.

~ baby quilts.  I am toying with the idea of opening an Etsy shop with baby quilts, other baby items, table runners, and other handmade items for the home.  So once again, percolating.  I think I am finding a theme here.

~ and art quilt.  I have been wanting to dip my toes in the water with art quilting.  I have my inspiration:

This is a school art project done by Boy 1.  I love it.  I love how the jars intersect and overlap.  I don’t think I really have the right fabric for this, so I’ve been percolating on that one too.

~ play blocks.  I spent one evening with the book Liberated Quiltmaking from the library and just made improv blocks and house blocks.  I would love to spend some time just playing with solid fabrics- making little one-block works of art.  Maybe it would become a quilt, maybe not.  I just want to play.

~ embroider tea towels.  Also inspired by Anna Maria Horner, I’ve been embroidering a little lately.  I love to have these flowersack tea towels around, not to dry dishes, for which I feel they are worthless, but to use like paper towels, drying veggies, or to put over a bowl of rising bread dough.  My local quilt shop is doing a class on embroidering tea towels and handkerchiefs, making the back look as good as the front.  I’d like to take it, since there is no way I’m taking a picture of the back of this tea towel.

So there is my all the time in the world list.  I’d better get crackin’.