The Quilting Rabbit Hole

 Hello Sweet Friends!  There's so much to share today.  You might want to grab a big ole cup of whatever before we start our journey down into the Quilters Rabbit Hole.   What exactly is the Quilters Rabbit Hole?   I called it a journey but it more like a virus, its contagious. The experts(suspected to be associated to the Quilt Police) say The Quilters Rabbit Hole(QRH) is a new strain of The Quilt Bug(TQB) we saw it rear it's ugly head way back in the late 1990's and early 2000's. 

The symptoms of QRH are unique to each host and can last for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and in rare extreme cases YEARS!  

After doing my research(none) I've come to the conclusion  I contract my version of QRH from the original super spreader event called The Internet.  At the Internet I became infected with the www.  Which over time evolved into many different strains of The Rabbit Hole(RH).  Quilters catch the QRH, knitters catch the KRH, Scrap Bookers(SBRH).  

What I find really odd is the abbreviation for the original strain....www.   Are they trying to down play it?  Why the lowercase?  Seriously?  If you have Hepatitis B you have HBV, Tuberculosis TB, Human Immunodeficiency HIV,  and we've all seen the commercials for COPD medications.  So why the www.?  In my opinion it should be big and loud  WWW.  

Not that it would do any good, I mean really, here we are right now in the middle of it wading around.  The sad truth is we love www. and how it makes us feel.  We love it infecting every aspect of our lives.  And since getting the www. I've met so many wonder people with www. and QRH and TQB.  Can it be all that bad when so many of my friends have it too?

Way back before www. I bought and read quilting books and magazines.  My sewing room was not even a room it was a small corner of my kitchen with a modest shoe box stash of scrap fabrics that I tried really hard to use up before purchasing anymore fabric.  Life was simple with one old Singer sewing machine in a cabinet that doubled as a microwave stand when not in use.  I could stay focused on one project for hours, days and even weeks.

What does years of www. infection look like?  This picture is when I had a bad flare up of  QRH a few weeks ago.  Everyday is a struggle when you have QRH but not all days are as bad as this one.  It took a few hours of staying away from the www. to recover from this flare up of symptoms and I felt like I had put those QRH symptoms of an over stimulated brain in remission. 

Over the past few weeks I've been dealing with little flare ups here and there.  Not as bad as the one above but there's always the potential for acute symptoms if I not monitored all times.  

My current situation of learning to use the leaders and enders systems is a trigger for so many symptoms.   As you saw in yesterdays post.  All I needed to do was put the quilt block units on the wall, transfer the blocks to mini design boards to be used as leaders and enders.  If you missed yesterdays QRH post you can find it here.   Yesterday's scrap bins below.

After 2 hours of searching and cleaning the two bins I now have two organized bins of blue scraps.  I decided to sort by size and put them in the baggies because of Bonnie Hunters blog post(www. hotspot) earlier this week that you can find here.  The plan was to dig through the bins to find more scraps for my current leaders and enders quilt and be done, shove it all back in the bins in a total mess.  QRB symptom: sorting scrap bins when you should be sewing.

 I did find the perfect batik scraps to add to my current project.

  Thank goodness I found this yellow fabric hiding inn my stash because had I not the QRH would have taken me to the www. for what I'm sure would have been hours of  finding the perfect fabric right smack dab on the middle of the www.  And I'm not even sure I want to add more yellow to this quilt.

After I found the fabric needed for current project..SQUIRRELL!...What's in this drawer?  I don't remember putting this stuff in here.  All of the drawers are supposed to be scrap fabrics sorted by color.  Might as well see what's going on in this bin.  You see the www. Bonnie post is still flaring up my QRH.

Oh  my goodness!  I forgot about making this block from a Lori Holt panel.  Why didn't I finish it?  It's cute but I don't like my color placement.  That's probably why it's a UFO.  But if I could find some more of this fabric in the cesspool of www.   You see, here again I fall deeper in to the hole.

Then I spied these.  I was looking for these a couple of weeks ago during a different QRH episode.  Yah! I found them.  My best quilting buddy Bev made them.  I must show them to her!  A few more symptoms are soon to follow.......Sent a picture to her phone(part of the www.)  We talked on the phone, discussed ideas for the blocks.  She told me how she was inspired by an older quilter(can't remember her name).  I google the quilter, scrolled the images of her amazing quilts and came up with an idea for sashing these beauties.

    Isn't it cute?  At this point I found myself digging for scrappy fabrics to frame each block. Nothing in there I think will work but I bet I could find them on www.Etsy.  NO!  You have an idea for how to finish them, make a mental note and get back to your current project on the design wall.

At this point  I'm starting to feel like QRH symptoms are fading.  

And then...

Well would you look at these.  I don't remember there being that many leftover nine patches. I should design a new quilt and use them.  I should search for ideas for nine patch quilts on the www.  

STOP!  

We(me, myself and I) decided to look at what's in the bin and get back to the current project, remember?  You may think I'm nuts but in my mind and sometimes outload I have conversations with those three pesky Lea Anne's.   Darn that QRH!

Under the nine patches was this mess.  Not sure what's going on here but I have a sneaky suspicion it was another moment of past QRH. 

I'm getting close to the bottom of this bin so why stop now.  

Wow!  I hand pieced these about 10 years ago and have no plan to make anymore.  I should applique them down to one large piece of fabric just to get them done.  I could spice it up with...and once again I had to tell myself to STOP thinking of reasons to search the www. for ideas or fabric.   I have a project on the quilt frame, one on the cutting table, one at the sewing machine, one on the design wall and one was on my ironing station before I started digging through this bin.

Another bundle of oddballs pulled from the bin... what the heck?  The first thing I notice is finished HST's, those should be in my bonus HST's bags.  Since the bag of HST's is already out I did move them to the proper place. The pink and brown block is from a few years ago.  It was a free www.  BOM by Jacqueline Steves.  One finished block is more proof that I've been infected by QRH for quite awhile.

Can you believe how much is in this one little bin. As I near the end and I think I'm finally in control of the symptoms.  These all bring back fond memories but there's no urges to search for anything on the www.

It was brief.  As soon as opened up the baggy, which I shouldn't have done, I saw the applique with a little bundle of nearly full FQ's.   I could feel the rush flow through my veins.  QRH was pulling me down into the www. abyss of reproduction quilting cottons.  These will not be enough to make a quilt....I need more of every print from the www.   Luckily I remembered how old this fabric is and the chances of there being any out there in the abyss is slim, so why waste my time. HA!  That's the clearest thought I had all day and quickest recovery from a symptom of QRH.  But I will take the time to put the leftover applique pieces in the correct storage container.

This box is where I store the leftover applique shapes and templates.  Opening it could trigger more QRH symptoms.  So I've got to be strong.  

Thank goodness!  Nothing in here triggers more SQUIRRELLY episodes.  I  put all the stuff back in the bin and was ready to work one or more of the projects in my studio.

And then.... there's so much sorting I should do!  NO!!!!  Lord give me strength!

I think this little adventure yesterday falls into my MOO-VE word of the year.  I moved forward on the sorting scraps and worked for so long and hard that my back and feet said we need a break.  Of course that meant going to the www.  for a little quilt and fabric eye candy.  HAHA!

Amen!  It all starts in your mind.  Lots of changes can happen once you change your attitude.

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