Kimono Garden

People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead. –Edith Wharton

Free-motion quilting is kind of a scary thing. It is just you and wherever your imagination can take the thread. As I've worked on improving this skill, the biggest obstacle is figuring out how to quilt something. Edge-to-edge works for some things. But I really prefer custom quilting that enhances the quilt's design.

I'm still working on branching out with quilting designs. I gave this quilt the Swirly Treatment; the same favorite swirls I've put into at least four other quilts.

And I quilted the squares and border the same way I did the Sudoku quilt. As a matter of fact, I designed this table runner specifically so that I could quilt it the same way.

This year, on both sides of our family we're doing “Dirty Santa” gift exchanges, where everyone brings a gift, we draw numbers and the person with the lowest number picks a gift to open. The next person can either steal that gift or open something else. It's called “Dirty Santa” because playing dirty is allowed. Doing a gift exchange this way takes a lot of pressure off. You don't have to worry about finding “the perfect gift” for a specific person. The party goers get to choose what their perfect gift is. And since I don't know who this will end up with, I can blog about it beforehand without spoiling the surprise.

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