…quilt camp 2019 – the joy of giving…

Some years, I find it really quite easy to decide what I am making everyone for our now-traditional quilt camp gifts. Often one of us will be down a particular crafty rabbit hole, or will have made a comment that sticks into camp folklore and is full of inspiration. Other times, like this year, we are all floating along, with life getting in the way of crafting and nothing really jumps out as an obvious gift. This year was one such year. I finally came up with an idea, until I started sourcing fabric and making plans, and realised my budget was rapidly blowing out, and the fabric alone was going to be over $40 per gift…that has a rough limit of $5. Add in that I couldn’t find fabric in everyone’s favourite colours, that I liked, and could buy in one place, and I ended up scouting around for another idea.

Finally, two weeks before camp, I came across the Clover & Violet Flora supply case. It would be the perfect option, and so I decided in the spirit of actually getting it done, that I would give myself permission to not go with everyone’s favourite colours, but instead pick a bundle of cute fabrics that I could use to create six coordinating cases (because if everyone else is matching, I don’t want to be the odd duck out!).

I made the mid-sized, 6×8 inch case, and switched out the suggested square patchwork for improv piecing instead, partly because I adore improv, and partly to make each case just a little bit different. I was going for coordinating, not matching. Of course, like all grand ideas, this turned out to be the longer way of piecing the outers, as I did each one in turn. I had thought of running them alongside each other, but that idea lasted about 3 seams before I decided it was too hard and changed to finishing one before starting the next. It took me almost a whole weekend just to do the outers, and with camp rapidly approaching, it had my stress levels skyrocketing as I became increasingly convinced I wouldn’t be able to finish them.

In the end though, once those pesky outers were done, they came together quite quickly. I put the last hand stitch in the binding of the fourth case at lunchtime a Tuesday and could then turn my attention to packing and cleaning. Case five (for Bec who wasn’t able to make camp this year), and six, for yours truly, went into the suitcase of projects to take with me…guess where they stayed all weekend? I managed to get some downtime on Friday to assemble Bec’s and get it bound, while mine remains in pieces on my desk. Hopefully this week coming I will be able to steal some time to get stuck in and get it finished since apparently I’m supposed to be starting a new daily stitching project that somehow I got sucked into, and will need something to store all my bits and pieces in.

I’m rocking the slow Sunday thing around here, following an injury yesterday while moving tanks at the farm, so I have the perfect excuse to sit on the lounge with my foot up and getting crafty. I’ve spent the last hour or so playing in Procreate on my new iPad, now that I finally have one that can work with an Apple Pencil, and I’m about to change things up with some crochet on my stripe sampler blanket. Half the smalls have gone to the farm with daddy, the other half are here playing Lego (Mr6) and sewing bags (Mr11), so it’s a very calm and relaxed kind of afternoon. Just the way Sunday’s should be.