WIP or Will

While I was looking in my stash for potential table topper backings, I found my long-lost 12th Hawaiian Punch block!!! For the last four or five years, I thought perhaps all I had was 11. Turns out I had taken that 12th block on a road trip back in about 2016, and upon return, the missing block did not return to the rest of its family.

The turquoise block snuck out of my project bag with its needle (still attached) and spool of blue Sulky thread to hide behind my gradiant batik stash, along with fat quarter remnants (and the white yardage I'd used for the Hawaiian motifs and QAYG backing!) from which this naughty child and its cousins were initially carved -- neatly folded fabric stacks I have not touched or even looked at in many a moon.

Now all 12 blocks and the mariner's compass I plan to use as a quilt centerpiece are reunited under one roof (the spare bedroom) and ready to slowly but steadily make their way into final placement. This is kind of what I envisioned back in 2012, before I had cut out all the Hawaiian motifs.

Ten of my Hawaiian Punch QAYG blocks have been finished for at least one and quite possibly two decades. I saved the final two blocks for last because they were my favorite colors in the entire project. You'd think that might have motivated me to get them finished faster!

When the turquoise block became lost, I couldn't even find a photo of it to prove it had even existed. I had several photos of 10 finished blocks and two photos of 11 blocks, one unfinished. But no photos of all 12 blocks.

Whoever heard of a fat quarter bundle with just 11 colors? I knew I had to be losing my mind. I was so sure I'd cut 12 Hawaiian motifs, but it was so long ago, before my blog and before I realized the importance of documenting my quilt progress along the way. Perhaps there had been only 11; perhaps that's why the project got put aside so long ago.

I thought I'd have to find a coordinating fabric in a new color and (hand) cut a new Hawaiian motif. I even considered designing my own motif, inspired by the many snowflakes I've designed since 2009. When that didn't get done in a timely manner, I dug out one of my four Hawaiian motif booklets and began searching for just the right hand-paint to complement the existing nine blocks. Thankfully, I never got around to selecting a new 12th block.

My 12th block and I kissed and made up upon its rediscovery. In fact, the reunion was so joyous and so earth-moving (for me, at least), I'm surprised it didn't make the evening news!!! My wayward block was SO close to being finished, how could I not just finish the darned thing on the spot??? No matter what else I had on my plate to occupy the waning hours of 2022!

As much as I wanted to, I did not finish my prodigal block that day. But I finished it in about two hours earlier this week. One down, one to go!

The final block went with me to my mother-in-law's last year, but ended up using that week to work on (and finish!!!)my snowflake skirt. I did get a bit done on the purple block, but too much hand-quilting remains to finish in one evening earlier this week.

But I'm making progress! I have some self-imposed deadlines for myself this year, including the Home on the Range quilt I cut out to teach my mother-in-law to quilt two years ago now, which she has confessed she does not want to make. She loves the fabric, but she says she is too old a dog to teach a new trick. (Her words, not mine.) I wanted to finish it for her for Christmas, and now I'm hoping to finish either by Mother's Day or her next birthday. Or next Christmas. This year, for sure. Perhaps the WIP challenge will help motivate me to finish all the rest of the WIPs on my list this year. Stop laughing! It can be done! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Here is my WIP list for the Ravelry Winter Quarter:

1. Hawaiian Punch

2. Tickled Pink, the Sequel

3. Goodbye Hollyhock Road

4. Snowflake Strip Bar

5. Green Floral Batik Postage Stamps

6. Giant Dahlia

7. Showcase

8. Moda Blockheads

9. Tiny Triangle Leftovers

10. Scrappy I Spy Neighborhood

11. Take Me to the Other Side

12. MIL Quilt

Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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Ring Tales

Lizard and I seem to be having a contest to see who can score the most wedding ring loss and recovery adventures. Lizard currently is winning. I must confess, I don't mind if I never add another episode to my own infamous list! This is a battle I don't mind losing!


Our most recent adventure has been the closest call to date. THREE MONTHS!!! We were certain Lizard's ring was gone forever. We'd even begun looking at potential replacements.

I would love to hoist the crown upon Lizard and proudly proclaim him the Ward of the Rings, effectively putting an eternal end to the Younger Games. We're too old for this!!!

Would the termination of our ring-hunting exploits cast a fateful shadow upon our Jewel of the While? Perhaps luck might bend the opposite way next time, and a replacement ring would require purchase.


I was the first in this union to lose (and never find) a wedding ring. While working a part-time second job at a restaurant, I took off my grandmother's wedding ring to wash cutting utensils in a big, deep sink. I placed the ring on the counter right next to the over-sized spray hose that could have been used to hose a co-worker on a hot day. I finished my task just in time for yet another bus full of hungry tourists (we'd had several that day), and I was called to the front counter to help take orders. When I returned to the sink about an hour later, the eyeball-sore ring, wrapped with about three inches of skinny medical tape to keep it from sliding off my finger, was gone.

Co-workers joined me in a fruitless search. I honestly don't know if the ring went down the drain (we disassembled the drain pipe and used the sprayer to wash out anything that might have been caught inside), was taken by someone or just honestly lost. I never once took a photo of it, unfortunately, so all I have is the memory. Sometimes I wonder if my grandma will have words for me when we meet again in heaven, for losing her one-and-only wedding ring, but I'm hoping she'll take my current ring in exchange. Provided there's a way to get it to her...


Lizard lost his wedding band the year after we said, "I do." Both of our rings would unexpectedly slide off, especially while riding our bikes. His ring slid off during a trip to the La Garitas in the southern mountains of Colorado. We didn't notice until we came down from the summit of a rocky little peak. We climbed back up to look for it, then after a discouraging hike all the way back down the mountain, we searched the trailhead where we'd parked. In a last-ditch hope, we returned to the wilderness camping spot we'd stayed in the night before and actually found the ring!


The very next year, Lizard repeated the feat. Upon the summit of Columbia, he realized his ring was missing again. He couldn’t remember taking it off, so he hoped it was still at home.

When we got back to the car several hours later, someone had placed Lizard's ring on the hood of our car.

In the center of the hood, where everyone could see it. They wanted to make sure we saw it. And others who came and left saw it, too. Everyone left Lizard's wedding ring for him. And there it was, just waiting for him.

The finders could have left it on the ground. They could have taken it. But they left it in a conspicuous place, and so did everyone else who passed through that day. Lizard still wears that very ring to this day. (Except for one more little unplanned jewelry-free vacation...)

I couldn't believe the finders weren't keepers. I couldn't believe they knew to which car the ring might belong. And I couldn't believe the miracle had happened yet again.


Next it was my turn. We were riding up Waterton Canyon last summer when we noticed the key chain on which I'd placed my ring was no longer keeping the ring safe. We looked everywhere. We assumed the ring was somewhere in Waterton Canyon and that we'd never see it again. Ground deeply into the roadway, never to be the symbol of anyone's love again.

Three weeks later, I was digging through my crochet bag, which I keep in my backpack. The backpack goes up the canyon with me, but the crochet bag doesn't. I'd been working on a quilt, so hadn't crocheted in a while. There, at the bottom of the crochet bag, was my wedding ring!

I do not know how it got there. But I certainly wasn't complaining. I think I was just about the happiest girl in the world for at least a few hours!


We traveled to Grand Junction last May to spend Mother's Day with Lizard's mom. While there, Lizard realized his ring was missing.

We searched his mom's house high and low. She checked her dog's droppings to make sure Buddy hadn't eaten and deposited the ring. She went through the vacuum bag to make sure she hadn't cleaned the ring up without knowing it. We searched the car. We retraced all our steps. We searched our own house when we returned home the next day.

This time, we really did think our luck had run out. We were going to have to replace the ring. In time. It wasn't something we could worry about right away. There were too many other obligations we had to fulfill first. Like house payments and vehicle maintenance. Utility bills and insurance payments. Medical costs. That kind of thing.

Weeks rolled by. Summer was escaping. We tried not to think too much about the ring, but there was this nagging loss that just wouldn't let go. There was an aching we tried hard to ignore. Our love was still secure; only the ring was gone. But the missing ring felt like a huge hole in both our hearts.

We've been on a mission to declutter this year. I'd finished the pantry and the coat closet. I'd finished all the non-silverware drawers in the kitchen. It was time to start beneath the bed. Ugh. I'd procrastinated way too long.

And right there, in the middle of the thick carpet (which actually needed to be vacuumed, thanks to Colorado dust), was Lizard's wedding band. Once again, I have no clue how it got there, but I'm very thankful it was there.


Ever since my little ring adventure last year, I've wanted to crochet a ringtail to visually help me tell the tale. I actually would like to make a ringtail from each color of thread I've dyed. But I've yet to finish the owl project (a 3D owl from each of the 90-plus colors I've dyed) I began back in February of this year.

Until I finish the owls, one little ringtail will just have to do. I think her tail comes in very handy.

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Discovery

I spent a couple of hours searching nearly every unpacked box in the house looking for a notebook binder of CDs I'd burned before my pre-millennium computer bonked for good. We’d moved into our house two years earlier, at the beginning of cycling season. For whatever multiple reasons, we still have yet to unpack. So searches such as this have become commonplace.

I needed a very old photo, pre-digital, and I hoped it might be on one of the hundred or so CDs I cranked out of my old Gateway before it breathed its last breath. I didn't want to search 16 boxes of photos if the one I needed had never been scanned. I didn't have time for that, and I didn't want to open the cans of worms some of the old photos might contain. Going through old photos often brings out a few long-forgotten emotions.

Finally, I was down to one unopened box. Labeled "winter," this huge box could not contain the CD binder. No way. I had packed this box in another lifetime, before I even owned a Gateway computer. Yet I opened the box anyway. It was the final box yet to be opened from any of my moves in the past... maybe three decades, I suspected.


Fleece, blankets, coats, Christmas fabric, more fleece and more Christmas fabric. Wow, I forgot I'd bought all that fabric after Christmas one year. Long, long ago. Back when I still had little ones at home for whom I could make quilts.

The bottom layer on the box almost glowed. Radiant in being found, it reached into the deepest, darkest corner of my mind and yanked me back to the day I packed the box.

Yes, that particular packing day was traumatic, but this find made up for all the heartrending memories. There at the bottom of the box was the collection of snowflake fabric I'd begun as a teenager. I'd started a snowflake quilt before adopting my first child, then worked on it again after adopting a second. Every once in a while, life would slow down just enough for me to finish off one more square, then back in the bag the project would go, awaiting the next morsel of free time. This went on for years. Then both kids ran away. Everything got packed up so my townhome could be sold.


That was eight years ago. I have searched for that snowflake fabric many times since then. I wanted to finish the quilt I'd started. I wanted to make a tree skirt. I wanted to embark upon all kinds of snowflake fabric projects. I’d added more blue snowflake fabric to my collection each January as it went on clearance. But that initial stack, the fabrics comprising so many of my early years, was nowhere to be found.

Until I needed an old photo!

After this year's race to finish a small snowflake quilt for the Denver National Quilt Festival, I'd decided I would take a month off from quilting, then start on next year's entry so I wouldn't be cramming at the last minute again. I had a few ideas. I bought a bit more fabric. Snowflakes, however, continued calling to me. I still longed to finish that old quilt.


Once I found my treasure lost, I couldn’t wait to get started. But cycling season had taken control of my life. I worried the fabric might get lost again, for maybe another decade, if I didn’t keep it out right in the open, where I could see it on the rare occasions when I was home before bedtime.

While training for Pikes Peak, I dreamed one night I made it to the top, and I was surrounded by media microphones and cameras. “What are you going to do now, Ms. Lanterne Rouge?” they all inquired, Super Bowl- and World Series-styled, expecting a Disneyland reply.

“I’m going to finish a quilt!” I excitedly beamed.

Now the two fantasies trade places. Pikes Peak goes back in the dream pile, and the snowflake quilt comes out for a jaunt to a finish line of its own. I’m hoping to finish this baby up before Christmas.

Oh, and I found the CD binder, too. Safely stored beneath the bed, right where it should have been. The photo I needed was in there. So all the rest of our boxes get to stay packed. For now.

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