41. By Fits and Starts

Star Pattern Quilt Block

It is a relief to be past the book of Job and into the Book of Psalms. Its familiarity is a comfort and a reprieve. So many of the passages have been used in contemporary worship songs, including this one. There was also poetry in Job, but it evoked a wholly different reaction from me than David’s beautiful verses. Job wrestled and suffered and asked the unanswerable questions. David wrestled too, but reminded himself to trust and rejoice in our loving God.

In other news: Life has its seasons. Since retirement, my husband and I have been decluttering the homestead, both inside and out. He likes to purge in a big way, and therefore see huge progress at the end of the day. Me? That’s making too many decisions at once. I dislike making decisions about my “things”. My philosophy is: The clutter trickled in to our lives bag by bag; so that’s how it’s leaving, I can cheerfully handle a trickle. I’ve been very good at giving away, throwing away, and donating away bag after bag until the house and yard are clear and clutter-free. The one exception is the sewing room.

But the ball has been set in motion, and I’m using the momentum. I acquired my fabric scraps bit by bit. I liked the idea that resourceful women used up old scraps and clothing to piece together their pioneer quilts. I know there were prosperous eras in history as well when quilters chose from an abundance of resources. But it’s more fun for me to create something out of seemingly nothing than to pre-plan and purchase all the fabric at once.

But that means I have created a state of fabric randomness that languishes in ugly plastic bins. Since I’ve turned the cleaning momentum on to my sewing room, I’ve been pulling scraps from those bins, joined them with a pattern, and put them into new bins. Wait, that’s still progress, because the new bins are specific projects with enough fabric to complete them. I even found big pieces for the backs, which I hung on hangers in the closet. Even though I now have multiple UFO’s, because I did start a little bit on each one, I feel much more sorted and organized. And those random pieces are as good as gone because they have a destiny.

Here’s what I pulled together:

First up: Floribunda

The Jacob’s Ladder blocks become optically interesting with Bonnie Hunter’s free pattern:

https://quiltville.com/pdf/floribundapdf.pdf

Inspiration:

Next up: Castle Wall

This has been a bucket list item for years. I’ve been having fun bagging up the pieces for each block. My inspiration was this:

But I bought this to make it happen:

Last up, for today: Economy

I was ready to donate a bag full of soft, almost flannel plaids and stripes. Then I saw this on Lisa Bongean’s website:

What a great Leader and Ender!

I’m happily slicing up the squares needed, going from smallest scraps to largest so they disappear quicker. The wastebasket is filling up with shreds too, which feels very gratifying.

The best part is, I don’t have to try to remember what I was thinking anymore. I’ve been juggling photos and patterns in my brain to consider later. Now the decisions have been made. All that’s left is to take a big cleansing breath, and breathe into the peaceful empty space that has been created. And sew!