Wednesday, September 08, 2010

I Hate Math

Can't say it within earshot of my kids, so I'm gonna say it here. I hate math!

Not so much that I won't draft a quilt block or calculate how to change a sweater pattern enough to match whatever gauge I'm getting, but teaching my four kids may be the end of me. Especially when the only answers to "When am I going to need this?" are "To pass a standardized test" or "When you're homeschooling your own kids and teaching them so they can pass a standardized test."

The back-to-school thing has hit me like a ton of bricks this year. Usually, we do school all year and, except for great sales on paper and crayons, September isn't anything special. But with my knee and the related chaos, we took the summer off this year -- and then didn't even get to enjoy the long vacation.

I will not do that again.

I've almost, but not quite, convinced myself that getting the two older kids through their schoolwork every day counts as enough of an accomplishment and I don't need to feel any not-quilting guilt.

But I really want to sit down at the sewing machine. Just as soon as my headache fades a little more and I get a few more minutes of sleep.

This quilt, which we saw at an Oregon Trail information center on the way back from the trip, has me all inspired --



Part of me wants to make a big reproduction to snuggle up in, and part of me wants to use those hollow sawtooth stars to make another scrappy little sawtooth chain.

And part of me wants to start another Bullseye quilt because I can't have this one --



I don't buy a lot of quilts, because I always convince myself that it's like buying a puzzle someone else has already finished and then sealed with that protective glue stuff. I'd rather buy the fabric and have the fun myself.

But this quilt screamed at me to snuggle up in it. I think I might've wrapped it around my shoulders for just a moment even though Grandma had bought it in a box at the auction and I wasn't sure where it had been. The backing was a soft yellow floral, and the quilting was this fantastic micro-stipple with a spiral inside the circles... The only thing I would've done differently was to leave off those borders. I don't do borders.

Grandma wasn't home (but I had specific permission to go dig out those quilts and take a look while Bill and the kids were visiting Grandpa), so I didn't get a chance to ask her what she planned to do with the quilt until after our trip.

And by then Mom had seen it and now it's Mom's quilt.

It's not like I can't make my own. Or like I hadn't already actually started my own two years ago. Wonder what the odds of finding those blocks are...

Probably better to start a new one. And I've even found a pattern.

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