The 2007-2008 Pre-Season Report

I said a few months ago that I would just take my disappointingly pristine quilting "to do" list from last year (which, you may recall, sucked for quilting purposes) and make that my list of goals for 2007-2008. But as the official September 1 kickoff date looms closer, I've found myself worrying over a new "to do" list like a dog gnawing on an old bone. Want to know what I've come up with? Well, too bad, because I'm going to tell you anyway.

First Priority

• Stained Glass Batik*, pictured, is one I've talked about on the blog before. It is pieced and layered, and I did a little bit of the quilting last year. It wants to be ready to show in the spring, which shouldn't be too much of a stretch.



• Labyrinth is another piece that I hope to have ready for shows in the spring. It is very nearly pieced after four years of work, and should be relatively easy to quilt. I will speak of it no further at this time, as I think it is pretty cool and don't want to jinx it.



• The first of my four nieces is graduating from high school next year, and I've decided that I'm going to do the graduation quilt gift thing. Fortunately, my oldest niece is partial to squares, and not a real maven for intricate floral applique or something.

Also Things I'm Pretty Geared Up For

• Batik Squares (pictured) is really just an exercise piece. It's not very attractive, but I'd like to finish it and get it off the table.



• Getting started on making a piece from the stack of blocks hand-pieced by my grandmother's stepmother in the early 1930s.



• Making a highly scrappy "recycle" piece from the gobs of, uh, non-traditional fabrics (including blue fake fur?) that find their way to my storage closet.

Things I'd Like to Do If There is Time

• Create a simple setting for a stack of star blocks from the 1930s, origin unknown, that landed in my lap earlier this year. In indigo and white, using cheap fabric, and made with frankly atrocious craftsmanship, they are a very motley set that I nevertheless find pretty charming.



• Complete a Four Seasons set, of which there is (after like six years) one complete and one half-complete. I don't even know if I like the concept anymore, but damnit...



• Combine some groovy medium-light neutral tone batiks my big sister gave me for Christmas into a background; and then applique a big, aggressive, cherry-red shape over the top of it. Something that looks like a Chinese word, or a letter from an imaginary language. Still thinking about this one.



• Requilt, or overquilt, Two Complex Shapes (pictured). It's all saggy now, but might be showable if I could give it interesting surface textures.

Things I Would Like to Do, but Realize I Will Probably Not Have a Chance of Getting To Really

• Repairing the little quilt my great-grandmother threw together when I was born. Never anything approaching a work of art, it is now arguably 20 years overdue for the trash. But hell, I'm kind of sentimental. Don't tell the guys.



• An asymetrical, simple geometric piece of light fabrics on light-light fabrics, loosely based on some work of book artist Sarah Horowitz. Squint at the image to the right, and maybe you can imagine what I have in mind.



• Another map of Oregon, this time based on population density instead of landforms. I know, I know. What can I tell you? I used to teach cartography.

* (The names I use here are kind of working titles. I might give 'em better names, once they're finished.)

Your Job, gentle State of the Craft reader, is to keep me on task. Remind me of this list if I seem to have forgotten it. Ask probing questions. Taunt if need be.

Thanks for reading!