Not sewing today!!

I'm a little under the weather today -- been coughing for about 48 hrs and I have a stuffy head.  This is disappointing, because normally Saturday is my big day to sew.  It starts Friday evening with my visit to the 'secret sewing sisters circle' at my aunt's house.  I blogged about that a couple of posts ago.  But this Friday I was feeling crappy so I begged off, saying I was too tired and didn't want to infect everyone else.

So today I was a lazy slug, vegging on the couch and watching some old reruns of Murder, She Wrote.  Now this is possible since DH is retired and does most of the normal household chores like laundry and vacuuming.  In fact I'm no longer allowed to vacuum or load the dishwasher, since he has become so particular about how it gets done.  So usually the weekends are for visiting family, working on projects, church and other fun activities.

DH had a tooth pulled yesterday, so we both decided to be lazy.  He brought in the mail.  I love the mail!  Several times a week there will be a magazine or sewing newsletter that arrives, or a new catalog.  Sometimes I order things and the days when a package arrives are lovely!  Today, the quilt kit from the upcoming retreat arrived.  The fabrics are beautiful, browns and teals.  The project is a wall hanging using a bargello technique.  I opened the box to check it out.

According to Wikipedia, the word "bargello" appears to come from the late Latin bargillus (from Goth bargi and German burg), meaning "castle" or "fortified tower".   In quilting, strips of various colors are sewn together, subcut into various widths and resewn into a configuration that could resemble mountains or castle walls.  If you have good contrast between the extremes of your color selection, it can make a striking end product.  If your colors are too similar, it will just be a muddy mess and won't be worth the effort it takes to make all those cuts and all those seams!  I'm on the fence about this project as I said in a previous blog.

Very brief instructions in the box say to cut strips from each of the 20 fabrics.  The strips are to be one and a half inches wide by the width of the fabric (WOF).  OK...  a strip loses 1/2" in seams, so what will be visible on the top of this project is the width less one half inch, or ONE INCH!!  Wait, this is nuts!  OK, an inch isn't the smallest piece I've ever cut, but people, ONE INCH!!

 I LOVE scraps, don't get me wrong.  But the smallest thing I save is 2"x2".  The other stuff, like 1" strips or less than 1" strips go into bags of strings and usually don't get sewn into quilt tops.  Or even wall hangings.  I'm going to have to think about this one.

The directions say, if you're making a queen sized quilt, cut 2" strips x WOF.  Not that much bigger, but you cut more strips, 9 as opposed to 4.  I know there's a method to this that I'm not seeing so far, but I am not loving this project at this point!  What size is a wall hanging?  36" square, 42 inches? 

OMG maybe I'm just not supposed to be thinking about sewing today!  If I'm habing a code in my dose I should just hab the code and give byself one weekend not to sew!!  Oh, my head hurts.  Time to lie down.

Did I say I also got a box of books in today's mail?  A lovely box of seven used books by Margaret Truman about murder... Murder at the Smithsonian, Murder at the White House, Murder at the Opera.  Yes, it's a much better day for murder than it is for thinking about bargello!!

Sew on, or not as the case may be...