Houston, We Have Flimsy...

I repeat, Houston, we have flimsy. Wooo Hoooo! My vow of finishing my Christmas quilt top last week was a success! It is now at flimsy stage. I love how this one turned out -- the colors are fun, the stitcheries worked out well, and using charm square packs really made this one come together pretty quickly. (thanks to dh for holding this one up for today's photo shoot -- cute toes and all, though I've been assured this is the most he wants posted of himself on my blog -- I smartly refused to promise anything. bwahahahaha)

Now on to the current quandaries about this one. My first problem is trying to come up with a name for this quilt -- some names just come to you, others, well, they just don't. This one isn't. Or, well, one does keep popping into my head, but it just seems. . . unoriginal. The entire time I've been working on this one, I've been thinking about the show Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. You know, the one with the Island of Misfit Toys? For some reason the elves (though no real physical resemblance) touch off fond memories of watching this show every year -- is it just me? Anyway, add to that the fabric is called "Holly Jolly" and I've been hearing Burl Ives singing "A Holly Jolly Christmas" in my head the entire time I've been putting this together. My first thought is to call it "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" and be done with it -- but, I don't know, it seems kind of, well, derivative? Hmmn, maybe I'm over thinking this one. Any suggestions for names would be appreciated though.

The other quandary about this one is how to quilt it. Though, truthfully, this one isn't so much of a problem right now since it's not going to be able to be sent off for quilting (nope, I don't have the talent for this one yet -- and it deserves something better than I can currently do) for a few months at least. Not because of the $$, though that is a factor, but because the top is not sitting comfortably in my flimsy drawer. No, nothing bad happened to it, it is now in its new temporary home. When I went to my newest LQS to pick up a couple of extra charm packs to finish up this one, I brought my elf stitcheries with me (ok, so I wanted to show off a bit -- I'm kind of proud of how they turned out). I showed them to the owner, Tammy, (who is a really sweet lady btw) and explained what I was doing with the rest of the blocks. Unfortunately, I didn't explain it all that well -- but she asked to see them despite my bumbling. I brought in a few of the disappearing 9 patch blocks in a couple of days later and she loved them. She also asked if they could use the top as a shop sample. Knock me over with a feather! (ok, kind of a hokey saying but -- it fits)

To make me equally dumbfounded (you would think someone had stupified me -- sorry, necessary Harry Potter reference -- the book comes out THIS WEEK!!!!!) Laura2 (her designation at the store, not my own weird way of naming her) who plans the shop's classes asked if I would be willing to teach a class on the technique. (I think my answer was something erudite and sophisticated like "um...sure...I'd...yeah") So in September I will be teaching a class on the disappearing 9 patch block and until then, my top will be displayed at the shop (I think it will go up sometime this week but they may wait until they get their shipment of Holly Jolly bolts in whenever that is). Have I mentioned again that I love the new LQS? (and if you haven't followed the links above, and here I'm trying to be all subtle and everything but I did promise to reveal the name of the shop eventually, the name of the shop is Tammy Tadd Designs -- yep, she does design patterns and fabric and the store is adorable -- and no, I'm not just saying this to suck up, really, I was spending money there before any of this happened) I will get a picture of the quilt in the shop when it gets put up!

And speaking of spending money on fabric. *sigh* I'm back on my fabric diet. No new lovelies for me for the rest of this month. I may, just may mind you, have gone a little nuts over some new fabrics that came into the shop this past week. But really, can you blame me? I resisted for a whole 24 hours before I went back to the shop and bought fabrics for the quilt that just would not leave me alone. (I was literally finishing up the Christmas quilt and taking breaks to design one around these fabrics) I do have to go back tomorrow and buy a little more of one of the fabrics -- I bought just enough fabric for my design idea and, of course, made a cutting mistake. But other than that (oh, and some binding for the Christmas quilt when the yardage comes in, and maybe some backing fabrics -- I think I've got a problem here) I'm in a no-buy zone until August at least. Not like I don't have three or four quilts that need to be done. Not to mention Mom's pillows to finish up and other assorted projects to complete. But I can't regret splurging on these -- I think the quilt is going to be fun!