Frustration, Inspiration, and Suffocation....................

Well, fellow clammers, and ladies who don't clam, I prepped my first batch of clamshells this week. Woohoo! Right? Wrong. Clamshell information, "good" clamshell how-to is extremely thin on the ground. I have in my possession the three sources shown above. The white page is from here, and is very nice, so that is the one I followed. Too bad for me, because this is what I ended up with:

These look perfectly alright, or did, until I got to thinking about it, and checked the other two books I had on hand. Both of them showed an important difference in their clams. To wit, there should be a 1/4" seam allowance on the two concave sides, as well as the convex one. So, I don't know why Lizard of Oz has you match the paper edge with the edge of the fabric, but I'm bailing out on that method. It makes perfect sense to me (now) that you need that seam allowance for the overlap. So, I thought, just in case any of you girls are using the LOZ sheet for instructions, I would just give you my experience to factor in.

So that is a part of the frustration mentioned above, along with the fact that my computer has been very crotchety this week, making blogging not much fun. Don't you go nuts w/o your computer since you began blogging? Boy, I sure do.

As for inspiration, it's coming at me in waves. There is just so much I want to do, to begin, to finish, to play with. For example, I cut some selvedges for Mayleen, thinking "Why in the world would anyone bother with selvedges?", and next thing I knew I was checking out this blog, and ohhhing and ahhhhing all over the place. So, guess what? Now I have downloaded this adorable bag pattern, for free, and you can too, just go to here, click on her blog, and scroll down for a look. I'm telling you, it's cute! Then, to add to my growing list of things I want to do, I received some gorgeous red and white dots. I have not a clue what I will do with them, but first it was the black and white, now these. What would you make? Have you seen any all polkadot quilts? Aren't they pretty, and fun?

Meanwhile, I am still slogging away, figuring out how in the world to join these blocks together. Once you pitch out the original layout of a quilt, you are pretty much on your own. So I had a rectangular hole just below the red bouquet in the second row to fill. I appliqued a leafy vine, and have the first, of three flowers on there, as you can see below.

Then, it's going to be either two large blocks, or three smaller ones, and I'll be ready for borders. Not one of my larger quilts, this one should finish around 80" square, but that's big enough for this one. My head is just swimming with other stuff to tackle, and that's where the suffocation comes in. Do you ever become so overwhelmed with choices that you immobilized? Once in a while that happens to me, and it is a miserable feeling. I hope it passes soon. The only thing worse would be to feel no inspiration at all. That would be devastating, and usually only happens for a week, or so, after a big finish. Teresa seemed to go through it, too, after her big finish on the Civil War Bride quilt. Do you all have these feelings, also?

Would you like a giveaway? I think next week I'll have some sort of giveaway, just to break up the routine around here, and to celebrate the fact that I was released (for good behavior) from attending Physical Therapy three times a week. This liberates approximately 81/2 hours a week, right in prime sewing time. I am very happy not to have to make that trip. It's a relief. So, if I'm happy, I'd like to make you happy too! Check here next week for details.  Happy stitching, Michele