McCord Vine

I flipped my Susan McCord calendar to April on Sunday and look what I found.. This quilt has mesmerized me since I first saw it on the back cover of this book (ISBN 1-890621-91-9).I could stare at it for hours, and to be honest, I have. Sunday was a great day for sewing; Costas and I went out and saw an old friend on Friday (stayed out til 2 am!) then spent all day Saturday out of the house, doing laps around the Wrentham Outlet Village. We had our fill of society and were perfectly happy to hide out inside by the time Sunday rolled around. He spread out in the living room to finish writing his referee report, and I let Susan McCord's inspiring vines and pieced leaves control the rest of my afternoon. I wonder how many other women turned to this calendar page on Sunday and set about to make something similar.

I am not making an exact replica (not yet anyway), but I've had the notion to add some applique to some large blocks of a sampler I've been piecing together for a few years. It's a project that I've stalled on time and time again, but I decided to take it in a new direction, thanks to Mrs. McCord, and we'll see how long I run with it this time. I chose and washed more fabric, then cut hundreds of inches of bias tape. I've never really liked making bias tape, but after all that, it's really not so bad. I laid out my vines and a few branches and basted them into place. I started chosing some fabrics for the leaves (even pieced a few). Yeah, Sunday was a good day.

Yesterday though, I was pulled in a completely different yet semi-related direction, and I nearly finished a small applique kit that had been sitting in my UFO basket. I need an applique kit if I'm going to piece all those damn leaves during my 15 hour flight to Tokyo (which is less than 2 weeks away!!!), right? And I needed to crochet trim onto the pincushion that will go into that applique kit, right? Now I see why Costas (or anyone else for that matter) might consider my obsession with this hobby bordering on insane. But I love it. It gives me such satisfaction. And I'm going to Japan, to hang out with housewife-quilters. Of course I need a pincushion with crochetted trim~

pictures to follow once the lighting/timing are better...