Today is the day!

I've been waiting patiently for 5 weeks now for the vertigo to go away.  Every day I hope that "today is the day"...  but it isn't.  I've come very close, only to relapse and feel worse again.  Well, today is the day I finally get to see a neurologist.  

In the meantime, Sweetie came home from Barbados, and I started a new quilt!!  Yes.  I'm not sure what I'm going to call this one yet.  It is a rectangle and strip quilt.  I got the idea for it here.  But the actual quilt maker's blog is here.  She designed the quilt for a quilting magazine, and it can be found online here.  The only problem is the quilt size!  Why do people make all these small quilts?  I don't understand.  I want quilts that fit on beds.  So I've done the math...  you know how dangerous that can be!!  And I think I can do it with my bundle of Fat Quarters that I got on sale at Its Sew Time last fall.  I bought the bundle because there was a 40% off sale, and I just couldn't resist. It is a collection of 40 fat quarters from Oasis by 3 Sisters for Moda.  Beautiful.  Only problem is that there is no more.  That's it, only 40 fat quarters.  I've been hesitant to use it because there can be no miscalculations!!  I can't get anymore.  (if you look back at my previous quilts I believe I mention my frequent trips to the fabric store to get more....)  I also don't have any coordinating fabric for the back.  My plan is to do the front and then take it with me to find something that will work for the back.  

I did something else too.  I signed up for another Craftsy.com course!  I enjoyed the machine quilting one, and found it very valuable, so I wasn't hesitant to try another, especially when they offered me a great discount at $20 per course.  So the one I've signed up for is called Re-Piecing the Past.  It is a course to make a civil war era quilt.  But I'm not making the quilt.  I was curious when I read the description of the course about a technique she uses.  The course is taught by Kaye English.  She's a great quilt designer, maker and collector.  She used to have her own quilt shops but now she just teaches quilting around the US.  I believe she's from Kentucky somewhere.  So back to this "technique".  She refuses to iron!  She pieces her entire quilt without ironing or pinning.  Why?  Not because she is lazy, but because she finds the iron distorts her blocks!  I know!!!  So you start out with perfectly (or near perfectly) cut pieces, you carefully sew them using close to perfect 1/4 inch seams and after you iron your blocks they are all different sizes?  This is why my math doesn't work!  Its the iron that is causing my distortion- or so I hope to prove.  I'm going to make this quilt without ironing!  Well, without ironing the blocks until the quilt top is done.  I've ironed all the fat quarters prior to cutting.  And I'll carefully handle them while sewing to see if we can eliminate the distortion of the fabrics.

So far, this is what I've got:

my work space.  Love this portable table!

You can see my math sheet...  and my neat stack of rectangles and strips.

my stack of fat quarters on the floor... 

6 meters of Kona White...  and more jumbo spools of thread... oh, and a new blade for the cutter!

Love this pink print.  Looks vintage

My favourite of all the fat quarters...  getting ready to make the first cut.

So far, 18 of 36 fat quarters are cut.  I have a pile of blues, pinks and creams.  I still have taupe, red and yellow to do...

On a different note.  Today is also the day I age 5 years.  Yep.  Happy Birthday to me x 5.  Apparently there is a mix up with my Social Insurance Number and my birthday.  Today is the day I go get that fixed so that they know how old I really am.  Wish I could change everything to match the wrong date....  On the up side, maybe I can just have cake?  with vanilla frosting and sprinkles?