ordinary time

Working on the project formerly known as purple hots, I have myself a second degree burn on the inside of my right forearm. Whoops.  I used to not press anything - who has time to press seams open, for real?! And then realization hit when one of the quilts I was trying to quilt failed miserably on the hoop, and I had to frog it all apart. The iron has yet to see the inside of the closet. 

Since the fabric arrived in the mail, the project has progressed from this point - 

To this -

I didn't mean for there to be red points on the perimeter of the quilt; I took the PRAXIS Fundamental Subjects: Content Knowledge test this afternoon and was attempting to calm myself down ahead of time by sewing (hahaha...) but I think that the points contribute well to the overall movement of the piece. It also spreads the red around, which also adds some more balance to the project, so I'm happy. What I'm still fencing over is whether to finish sashing it in green, yellow, or purple, what color to do the binding in, and whether or not I want to add some decorative piping, such as this raspberry batik piping from the "Jubilee" quilt from the show last weekend. And of course, if I did add piping, what color would I do that in?

A preliminary outline of the quilt looked something like this - obviously missing the points, with two rings of sashing; an inner ring of yellow and an outer of a lighter purple, which leaves me feeling blah. I was trying to figure out the dimensions for this project last night during a class break and came up with something like 4 feet by 6 feet - ridiculous! - which I blame on exhaustion and a nasty sinus infection, which had only been diagnosed yesterday at noon. 

 I know, midterms, sinus infection, PRAXIS... it's Friday and a wonder I'm still alive and I didn't have to frog this project. But it's coming along. I probably won't have it completely finished for Christmas, but most of the way there would be nice. People have given 'most of the way there' quilts as gifts before, right? I skipped going to the Thursday quilting group at the library - midterms, sinus infection, et all - so I'm hoping that next week, I'll have the top finished enough to posit the final sashing, binding and piping questions to some other eyes. It is at a nice throw size right now, which is the intention for this project, so it does not need to grow.