Keeping the Sabbath

The Lord said we need to rest every once in a while. He thought once a week was a good idea. He should know -- He made us. When you're retired (or at least semi-retired) it's hard to tell sometimes when you're working and when you're resting, because you generally get a lot of time/days to do whatever you want. Years ago I heard a definition of "work" that I always liked: "Work is what you have to do when you'd rather be doing something else." According to that definition, you can see where the line starts to blur in retirement. But most of the time when I'm at home, I work on things that need to be done...or should be done. Even in my sewing room. I normally work on projects that just need to get done already (!) or things that are gifts and have a deadline date, etc. The way I define my day of rest, then, is to allow myself to work on whatever other thing I want. Sometimes I'll see a quilt in a magazine or a book and I'm very intrigued by it and want to try it right away! Well, it's not on the long list of things to get done, but it excites and inspires me. So I allow myself the luxury of Sundays in the sewing room to work on whatever I want...as long as it doesn't have a deadline, or even a special purspose for that matter. Just something that fascinates me.

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon down there doing just that. A while ago, Melisa got a Quilt Sampler magazine in the shop and on the cover was this quilt. It's called "Prairie Vine". I'm always drawn to scrap quilts and I fell in love with this one instantly. I brought the magazine home with me and right away I started picking through my scraps. In my version, I have only rarely used the same fabric more than once. When I had time at the machine I would start piecing the blocks, but when I was sitting in front of the TV, outside, or even in and airplane going to Las Vegas, a bus going to the Hoover Dam, and a bathroom (! Just ask Amelia), I began forming the 140 leaves it will take to applique around the border.

I just finished piecing the inside portion yesterday afternoon in time for dinner. Not in time to make it, you understand, just in time to come up and eat it after Jerry had made it (bless his heart...and it was wonderful). So here is the center of mine. I still have to add the outer border, then applique the vine and all those little leaves. I have over 100 of them ready to go.