jennifer, Author at Hopeful Homemaker

Improv Log Cabin Quilt

August 6, 2020 jennifer Quilting and Sewing

This Improv Log Cabin Quilt has endured a long, slow journey to completion. Several years ago I went to a Ralli Quilt exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art with my sister. To say we were moved and inspired by the exhibit is an understatement. We decided to each make an improv log cabin quilt, inspired by the work of those amazing women.

The projects began at Quilt Bliss, a quilting retreat we attended together, where we each made a quilt top. We shared fabrics and advice with each other as we sewed. Then, still inspired by the exhibit, I decided to hand quilt mine. I also wanted to return to the neon matchstick quilting of my Modern Maples Quilt, so I decided to do a mixture of the two.

And the momentum died there. I did a little matchstick quilting to serve as both basting and as guides for the long rows of straight stitching. But it was so much work to pull the thread through the length of the quilt! I made very little, and very slow progress. Before long it was a project that I picked up for an hour or two, only once every year or two. It was definitely stalled.

Enter the Alison Glass 2020 Stitch Club. I decided to join, and the June project was all about the running stitch. In it, Alison taught how to quilt those long rows with one strand of thread. It was illuminating and motivating! I got to work, and in a few weeks time, finished all the quilting I hadn’t done over the past 5 years.

I’m really happy to have this Improv Log Cabin Quilt finished. The combination of modern and vintage fabrics still feels fresh to me. I LOVE the texture and color of the quilting! This one will live in my bedroom so I can enjoy it every day.

Also, I’m kind of obsessed with log cabin quilts right now. I want to finish up some projects and start one or two more with this block. It’s like comfort food, but sewing, you know? And comfort is something we can all use this year!

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20 in 20: May-July Report

August 4, 2020 jennifer Quilting and Sewing

Well, the world has sure changed in the past several months, and my 20 in 20 project has evolved along with it. When I posted my last report in April , finding time to sew was a struggle. Who could have predicted all this? With so much social unrest in the US at the end of May, I decided not to post my monthly report. (And then I may have accidentally abandoned posting at all for a while!) Gratefully, however, I’ve kept with my resolution to sew for at least 20 minutes every day in 2020 .

My 20 in 20 quilt is now more than half sewn, with rows for almost seven full months attached. It’s colorful and happy and I’m SO GLAD I decided to make a quilt to track progress.

Sewing has continued to be a wrestle for me; either I can’t settle on what to sew when I have time, or inspiration strikes and I can’t get to my machine. Family demands have shifted and I’m still adjusting. Gratefully I can usually do some hand sewing, and frequently it’s an applique project that allows me to get 20 minutes in.

I settled on a solution for marking days. Writing the event/memory in pencil, then stitching over it with two strands of black embroidery floss is working well. The highs and lows are now marked for me to remember. It’s becoming more of a journal, but it feels appropriate.

It’s been months since we’ve had a reliable schedule at our house. So many things changing all the time leaves me with little time for sewing. But as I suspected, 20 minutes does add up. It also seems to be enough to keep me from dropping the habit entirely. I’m excited to see how August goes, and what sort of schedule we come up with as school starts again. It should be interesting!

Keep sewing!

Jennifer

Hello Again

August 3, 2020 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty

Hi there. It’s been a while. 2020 has turned out to be quite the year, and from all appearances at this point it’s going to stay strange. I didn’t mean to take such a long break from blogging; one minute I was taking photos of my newest quilt top in April, and the next I was turning the calendar to August. But here I am, and hopefully you will stop by at some point. So, hello again! How are you?

I feel different. And the different has changed forms several times over the past 5 months. Our family has experienced our own, individualized, version of the pandemic along with everyone else. It’s been stressful, heartbreaking, freeing, beautiful, and ugly all at once. Sometimes I feel lost; other times I feel found. I have loved extra time with my family and grieved for things we’ve lost.

Sometime in late March I was working in the yard when I spied this daffodil laying face down in the flowerbed. I straightened its bent stem to look at the flower. And it took my breath away! Its slightly wilted, yet still exquisite beauty was both a gift and a mirror: a gift of hope and a mirror of the resilience we’re all working to maintain. We may be wilted, and we may be rising up from having our faces down in the dirt, but we are beautiful. Beautiful, valuable faces we can still turn to the sun.

However the year ends, I hope I’m coming out of it more gentle, more compassionate, a better listener. I want to see people for who they really are, hear their stories, spread kindness. I want to be part of the solution – on an individual level.

So… wherever you are in your journey, face up or face down, thriving or struggling or anything in between, know that you matter. You are beautiful, talented, valuable and creative. I end today with wise words I’ve shared before:

“Being creative will help you enjoy life. It engenders a spirit of gratitude. It develops latent talent, sharpens your capacity to reason, to act, and to find purpose in life. It dispels loneliness and heartache. It gives a renewal, a spark of enthusiasm, and zest for life.” – Richard G. Scott

Here’s to gratitude, to renewal, to enthusiasm and zest for life! Hello again!

It’s good to be back.
-Jennifer