Frozen--by Indecision

This has been my weekend off--the 3 days I was eagerly anticipating. I daydreamed of getting so much sewing done, working on paper crafts to send in letters to my girls. I planned to quickly pack up the rest of the Christmas decorations and use the dining room floor to lay out my daughter's string quilt and sandwich it. I was going to make cookies to take back to work Tues. night. I wanted to stitch up a quick table topper to give my neighbor in appreciation for her taking care of Tandi when J-Man was in the hospital.

Are you laughing yet?

Well, the weekend hasn't been a total loss.  I got in an extra nap, got the bathrooms cleaned, culled through some more quilt magazines, did some real cooking and not just re-heating pizza, though that was done, too. Christmas will get put away today.

But when I got into my sewing room and began poking around, I came across even more UFOs and baggied projects I'd fogotten I had.

A couple of years ago, when I was co-leader of our quilt bee, we played quilt bingo, from the Fons and Porter  Sept/Oct '06 magazine. I collected the blocks to put together some community quilts for us to donate, and then forgot about them.

Last night I found them, and was trying to figure out how to put them together. I decided black sashing would look the best (though the photo in the link shows red sashing and it looks good), but couldn't decide on the width or the layout. And, as usual when you have several people making blocks, they don't all measure out at 10 1/2". 

I was thinking on point would be more interesting than just squared (though it looks pretty good in her photo), and might disguise the uneven sizes. But what should I use for setting triangles if I use black sashing?  And I don't have enough black fabric anyway, so I got online and ordered some, because I've already checked our local quilt shop in the past and they rarely have solid blacks.  So I put that one away.

Pulled out the balloon blocks and decided to frame the blue squares with darker blue sashing and then just scatter the balloons over all.  Except--you got it--I didn't have enough blues in a shade that wouldn't clash with the cloud fabric. Found more at the Fat Quarter shop and ordered that with the blacks.  Put them away.

Found these:

Rejects from the Christmas sweatshirt vest made 2 years ago. I was thinking of maybe trimming the tree block back and making a small wall hanging, with little Christmas buttons or charms on it, but then again, maybe it and the holly leaves would look good on Christmas bags, which I didn't have the time nor the inclination to start. So I put those away.

Tucked under a bunch of other projects, I found these little blocks:

They had pieces of a brown sashing that had been trimmed down in preparation for cutting apart, so I got out the seam ripper and took off the rest of the sashing. I vaguely remember planning on using these in a swap 2 years ago, but they didn't make the grade.  Should I just stitch them together  and add a couple of borders for a Christmassy table topper? Or a runner? 

And did I really want to unpack the 2 suitcases of Christmas fabric to find something I could use?  Nope, it was too late at night.

I don't even remember making these blocks, much less what I was going to do with  them:

They're made from Christmas fabrics, but I don't think I like the varying widths of strings in such a small block.  It makes them look awkward, and I can't seem to find a layout I like.  If I made 1 more, I could just add sashing, which would minimize the awkwardness and, with the addition of a couple of borders, would have a respectable table topper for next Christmas.  But then, I'd have to unpack those 2 suitcases....

Okay, what about a table topper for my neighbor?  I found a cute little pattern at a LQS and thought I could pull from my overflowing scrap baskets to do it, but it takes 80 small 2" squares.  Not 2 1/2", which I already have bags full of, but 2".  I'd need to either cut new ones or trim the old ones. At this point, I threw up my hands and went to bed.

And, after dealing with 3 disoriented patients Thurs. night, 2 of whom required restraints, my back is still sore, so I haven't gotten down in the floor to sandwich DD's quilt.

So.  Nothing accomplished.  Does this happen to anyone else?