UFOs

Just before my son was born, I was working on a quilt for my daughter.
Here I had it all laid out on the bed, trying to decide just which colors would flow nicely into the others.

Sadly, I was placed on bedrest and I put it away.

Then, when my son was born, I became bizarrely paranoid about ironing with him in the room. What if there was a freak accident with the iron and he got burned? Well, certainly I can only quilt while he's sleeping then, right?

But laying out a whole quilt takes up a lot of space, and what if I accidentally make a mess? What if I loose a piece?

Well, maybe if I just work on it in parts while he's napping.

But he sleeps so much better if I nurse him down.... and then I want to lay there and cuddle.

You get the idea. The reasons compound.

Since then I've made more than 20 sock monkeys,

 bunnies, 

bears, 

elephants, 

and other creatures,

 upwards of 15 dolls,

 at least 2 purses, 

one complicated hexagon quilt, 

eight blankets, 

three slings,

one pillowcase, 

and a couple hats, 

And some other odd projects of which I seem to lack photographs...

but I still have this UFO staring me down.

What sorts of projects do you have on hold, and what *really good reasons* are you using to convince yourself not to finish?

Blankie

When I was a kidlet, I had a blankie. It was a yellow thermal waffle knit blankie (the kind Gerber made back in the day which has square corners instead of rounded ones like they do now) with a thin silky yellow binding which my mom had sewn down with baby pink and kelly green thread. It had two rows of zig zag all the way around, and the corners were satin stitched. In one corner, she'd even satin stitched my initials.
It was love.
I took my blankie everywhere. I never slept without it. There are pictures of me hugging my blankie at Great America at 3 and at Disney when I was 4. I took it to overnights at friends' houses. I took it for show and tell in kindergarten where I proudly told the class. "This is my blankie. I like to hug it and I rub the binding between my fingers like this because it's smooth."
I liked the coolness of the binding and the way that the waffle knit left an imprint on my skin so that I could smile and remember cuddling my blankie.
I took my blankie to Girl Scout camp when I was seven. At eight my family had to drive over an hour out of our way on a long car trip because I had forgotten it at my aunt's house. My daddy made a U turn in front of the State Troopers' building, without complaint, the moment we realized it'd been lost, because my parents knew that I NEEDED my blankie. IIn fifth grade my mother replaced the binding, again with green and pink thread.
I took it to a camp focusing on organization and global thinking skills when I was 11. I took blankie to a different camp at 12 and 13, and to St. Louis on our 8th grade trip. I took my blankie on our big trip to England, and in high school I still slept, every night, blankie wrapped around my neck, or rolled beneath it.and with the ends shawl-like over my shoulders. I cried into my blankie when my friends were mean to me, I hugged it when excited. I'd drape it over my eyes when I had a headache, and the surest way to trick me into cleaning my room was to hide it, because no lurking corner was safe if I didn't know where blankie was.
Blankie and I were inseparable.
Since then I have found it strange that my daughter is a blankie-less child. Sure, she has blankets. She even has ones with soft and silky binding carefully sewn by her mother. She has small quilts I've made her, and blankets from her grandmother, crocheted blankets, woven blankets, blankets galore, but nonetheless, she never had a blankie.
Now, my son, some (almost) 11 months old, seems to be showing no amount of interest in a blankie. Most nights he doesn't even sleep with one.
I feel like she missed something. I feel like he's missing something.
It isn't that I want to encourage dependence on a blankie or an unhealthy attachment to a single object, but I can't imagine not having that one constant special something, the presence of which is so soothing.
His first birthday is coming up soon, so I bet you can guess what I'm planning to give him, right?

Blue Monday: Kaleidoscope Quilting

Recently, Spouse and I went out of town. And what does any self respecting me do when she's cooped up in a hotel room with a small baby?

That's right. She' quilts.
My mom wants me to make her a quilt and she had picked out some Peacock fabric for it, and what do I do? I slice it into repeats, line up the various points of convergence within the design in all six layers, cut it into identical stacks of 6 layer stacks, then chop them into equilateral triangles.
I personally find it quite amazing how very much diversity there is in just one fabric.

I personally love the kaleidoscopic affect. Don't you?

For more Blue Monday, head on over to Smiling Sally.