Pollution and Quilting Day

I was so deep in the crafting zone yesterday I didn’t notice the sky was turning grey and orange until I paused my projects for a Twitter break, and read about it from my phone. There have been some wildfires in eastern Canada this week and tons of the smoke flowed into New York. The air has a hazy reddish tint, the freaking sun has changed color, it’s very weird. I closed the windows and plan to wear a mask again whenever I must go outside, that will probably be tomorrow. The view seems better now than it was this morning, hopefully the apocalyptic vibes will dissipate too as the smoke blows away. 

The craft project that had gripped my attention was a quilt top, made mostly from pre-cut squares I bought a few years ago. I did slice some of the fabric myself, but love to buy a variety of colors already picked out and cut by someone more confident about all that.  Quilting isn’t my main hobby, but sometimes when I am shopping for yarn or other craft supplies I’m tempted by those colorful quilting fabrics that come sold in a co-ordinated bundle. Using the sewing machine is much gentler for my elbow injury than other arts and crafts ( for example knitting and playing video games can really inflame my “tennis elbow”). I definitely consider myself a novice and beginner quilter, and I think I’ve made about 10 quilts so far. They’re all very simplistic designs, using strips or squares only. It isn’t my goal to get more complex though.

My collection of fabrics seemed to call me recently and I finally put them together through the sewing machine.  There are still many more steps to complete before the quilt top becomes a usable blanket, but it feels great to have one important part accomplished. 

It was about 4 hours I spent carefully arranging the blocks and then sewing them, only once getting the direction wrong! The color and theme for the quilt is lots of pink, and using some pastel rainbow fabrics leftover from another old project.  I’ll certainly share more details when it’s all complete, and hopefully the fires will be under control and air quality improves by then too.