Oceans Quilt

I wanted to talk a little more positively about the ASAP quilt I'm fighting with right now.

This one:

The majority of the charms for this project came from the 'Row by Row Experience' charm pack I picked up at my local quilt shop. I would love to participate in the real Row by Row some time, but this year I knew I had this quilt coming up, and I knew that these stunning blues, greens, and sandy tones would be ideal.

I also picked up an odd sized jelly roll from the precut area at my local Joann Fabrics, going for similar blue/green/shiny shades. I'd hoped to include a few leftover regular jelly roll pieces (as noted by the white stripe going the 'wrong' direction) but discovered after taking the picture that the Joann roll pieces are slightly more than 2.5 inches, which was a better size for my half square triangles, but meant that my other jelly roll pieces were a no go.

To add a little more interest to the overall pile, I pulled a few favorite charms in appropriate colors from a Cotton & Steel Tokyo Train Ride charm pack I picked up for some upcoming purely selfish sewing I hope to get to before Christmas 2015. The Tokyo Train Ride pieces add a little more whimsy to the fabric choices, as well as a little more color variety -- which I think is needed to help the single white, green, and two tan charms from the Row by Row package blend a little better.

It's not quite the same as choosing all the fabrics and mixing the whole thing myself, but it's a baby step towards practicing making fabric choices. I'm fairly happy with how everything looks, and I'm actually pleased with the 'chance' I feel like I'm taking by mixing in the Tokyo Train Ride prints.

So why the sudden pressure? Why am I throwing another iron in the fire when I'm already overly busy with my own projects that have deadlines? The answer is a little complicated and includes a high school friend, a college roommate, my procrastination keeping me from getting ready ahead of time, and a baby who will be arriving later this summer/fall. I had hoped to be ready for this upcoming arrival before I got caught up working on my own upcoming arrival's projects, but life caught me off guard and I failed to be as ready as I wanted. And suddenly, I've got most of a package ready to ship to this friend -- but I haven't even started on the project I've been wanting to make for her for 3+ years.

Is this going to be the project I'd dreamed about making for her? Obviously not. Obviously it is teaching me a lot of lessons in humility, something about not procrastinating, and a little bit about working through things completely before jumping in full throttle. But I'm still hoping to come up with something that will be worth the effort and worth sending.

Speaking of, I'd really like to make a little more progress on it yet tonight -- but instead, I'm going to force myself to go to bed and hope that with a few more hours of sleep under my belt I can make better decisions in the morning -- because I sure can't afford another round of mistakes for this one!

Then again, working on a quilt for a specific recipient means I spend all that time thinking about them and my hopes and prayers for them, so spending a little more time on this one isn't so bad...