Quilt Update

After ignoring the quilt for a day or two, I reluctantly headed into my study to try and make sense of the mess I've made. First? Browse through quilt books. This is Balkan Puzzle from one such book, mocked up in my quilt program.

Eh.

Then I thought I should look at photos from some of my trips to France, specifically southern France. This idea of a block surrounded by a grid seemed to be common:

Both of these photos are from a Carolingian church in Lyon.

So I monkey around with ideas from the photos, ideas from the blogosphere and come up with this one, which is basically the first photo's design turned on its side. If I focus in on the yellow blocks surrounded by the red "petals," then it also reminds me of the fields of sunflowers we saw as we traveled in the south of France.

On a completely different, yet related not, I went to UCR's materiel (yes, that's spelled correctly) sale this morning and bought another file cabinet. I did this in order to torture my children with more stuff to clean out before I die. KIDDING! I did this to get some of the old school stuff and books out of my hair--stuff that is crammed into closets. I'm going to invite Dave to play Clean Out as well.

How is this related to the above search for a new quilt block? I've been cleaning out files and files of newspaper clippings, torn out pages from magazines, mimeographed craft patterns and other sundry items. In the old days, BE (Before Internet) that was our idea source--the places we went to to get ideas for quilts, for crafts, for sewing. I realized that I rarely turn to old saved print clippings for ideas, instead I head to the Internet. My friend says she is trying to divest herself of more and more files as she continues teaching, trying to rid herself of file drawers of lesson plans and saved teaching ideas.

I was struck this morning by this difference in process, as I continued to try and solve my Provence Quilt problem. Just one more way my world--our world--is changing.