The whooshing sound

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -- Douglas Adams

Project Sub Rosa is the third project I have led for this group of people. No, scratch that: it's the third project that involved exchange of money and resulted in a physical product at the end. There were at least two other coordinated activities beyond that.

It is human nature for people to wait until the last moment that something is due; and so you set specific deadlines, even when there's nothing special about the date, or nothing will ever get done. Still, you get stragglers. And having to remind people ahead of time (to minimize the number of stragglers) and then bugging the stragglers is absolutely my least favorite part of any project.

The trouble with having a two-part deadline, we discovered, was that the sense of enthusiasm that carries people through the first part of the task may not last to carry them through the second too. So our second deadline came and went, and eight people still had letters to turn in for the scrapbook. 8 of 20-odd makes a pretty loud whooshing sound.

Added later: As of Monday eve, we are down to: 1 missing contribution, 1 missing piece of fabric, and 2 missing photos (due Thursday). That's not so bad, is it? Especially for a project that doesn't actually have to be done by any particular time.

Project Sub Rosa

NB: I am speaking in general terms here as this project is still ongoing.

A group of us decided to make a quilt for a friend who was in a tough spot. After I put out the call for participants amongst our larger group of friends, 22 people responded. This was going to be a pretty ambitious project - not because of 23 quilt squares (including my own), but because of 23 personalities.

(At a loss for a name, I am referring to this project under the nickname I gave the place where we discussed it, Sub Rosa.)

We initially asked participants to provide several things: 1) a piece of fabric, 2) a bit of money to help out with costs, and 3) a note to the recipient that explained something about the fabric. The plan evolved as it went along; and the idea of writing notes expanded into making a scrapbook that would hold the notes, fabric swatches, and 4) photos. (The scrapbook was picked up by one of the other women in the group, who has made scrapbooks before. No names here, in case the recipient somehow stumbles across this page, but this is someone with whom I have worked before, and know to be extremely conscientious, an excellent project partner. I felt glad to know that the scrapbook was in her hands!)

I had set the general deadline 2 weeks from the day of the announcement of the project, knowing that people needed time to find fabric and mail it to me. It turned out, though, that most of the people in the group were not fabric store habitués; and in the end, everyone chose to have me order the fabric of their choice from a store online.

Knowing that it would take about a week for fabric to arrive here, I set an interrim fabric ordering deadline of Friday, a week after the start of the project. Much of that first week was spent conferring with people about their fabric choices. Trying to capture an idea or a personality in fabric can be tricky, especially if you are trying to stick to a certain color scheme. (One Barbie pink square, reflective of a personality though it might be, could be a color fiasco amidst the autumnal colors we wanted.) So there were negotiations and compromises, and a whole lot of searching, which ended up being more time consuming than I would have guessed. It came to occupy most of my waking thoughts. I would lie in bed at night brooding about fabric, and would shuffle out of bed in the morning, still thinking of fabric. By the end of the week, I was getting a little loopy. But in the end, we were able to come with a set of squares that reflected us, and looked good together.

(No photos here just in case!)

Once the fabrics were ordered, it was time to turn our attention to items 2-4: contributions, letters, and photos.

Invitee list and ...30 good wishes?

Hey Sandie, how large is your list of people whom you plan to invite to participate in this quilt? Brainstorming names and assembling addresses (into a spreadsheet, if you are a spreadsheet fanatic) might be a way we could make progress while we wait...

In other news, we'll be doing what amounts to a trial version of a 100 Good Wishes quilt, with a much smaller number of donated squares in it (along with others that will attempt to make some sort of order out of chaos). It'll be interesting to see how it works out!

My mother's African-style quilt

Here it is, prior to acquiring its border(s). Click to see a larger view:



In other news, there are star blocks scattered all over my studio! I am finished with all the small, 6" blocks; once I finish up two more of the 9" blocks, I'm going to put this project on the back burner for a bit so I can focus on finishing up one of my other quilt tops.

What we are waiting for...

In case you are wondering how Fionn is going to fit in sewing the Panda's quilt with all her other projects, I should explain that we have decided to not start officially on the 100 Good Wishes Quilt until we are approved to adopt. For that to happen we have to go through 3 months of social worker interviews & assessment which should start in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about what fabric I can contribute. (I'm allowed to contribute, aren't I Fionn?) I have a brocade vest that was part of my going away outfit for our wedding. It matched the vests that Scott & his groomsmen wore. I am going to chop that up for the quilt. I also want to find something special for Gemma & Ben to contribute. Maybe it will be a piece of fabric from a favourite piece of clothing (that they have grown out of, of course.)

I also have a large piece of pink fabric that I inherited from my Grandma. It has since become the official "Girls' Night In" tablecloth. "Girls' Night In" is a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Foundation. The idea is that you get your girlfriends together and stay home and put the money you would have spent towards finding cures & treatments for breast cancer. My friends & I do it a little differently. We get a big apartment or a couple of hotel rooms and all bring along some pink champagne and something to share for dinner, then throw the cost of dinner into the pot to donate. We are developing other silly, funny traditions to go with it (such as the magic fortune telling fish) and my grandmother's pink fabric has become one of them. Grandma suffered from breast cancer in both breasts but recovered both times. So, a piece of Grandma's tablecloth will be going into the Panda's quilt to remember Great-Grandma Claire.