Yes, Sanguine has been absent from the blogosphere of late.  It turns out that relocating to a different state and transferring to a new job takes waaayyy too much time away from sewing and blogging.  This is not a good start for a new blogger but drat the luck, life just gets in the way! Things are not settled down yet but Sanguine has decided to take the bull by the horns and control this demon!  Some of it has been the fact that I want to sew and blog and some of it has been the fact that I need to sew and blog.  Go figure!

I did finally find time to buy some clearance Lisette fabric at JoAnn's.  These were $6/yard and I have been coveting them relentlessly over the past year.  I just couldn't bring myself to spending the $12 - 14.99/yard for them.  Then, using coupons from my JoAnn's iphone app and my 10% off card, I was in the money - er ….fabric, I mean.

I've moved back to the lovely Temecula Valley in Southern California but, one thing I had forgotten was that it's cold here!  Well, cold for someone who has lived in Arizona for the past nine years. Anything under 70 degrees and I'm looking for my heavy coat. One of the things about Southern California is that you always need to dress in layers because the weather could be cold in the morning, warm mid day, blustery in the afternoon and cold again in the evening. Layers are an essential component of life in California.  But, I discovered that I didn't have any decent warm blankets. I'd be sitting on the couch at the end of the day and I was absolutely freezing.  I'd cover myself with my thin fleece lap blankets but they fell woefully short of keeping me warm.  Turning on the heater was my only recourse. Hence, it was time to pull out all my fabric scraps and quilt kits in my stash and begin to make a quilt for those cool February evenings.

Now, I've only made two quilts in my life - one was from a kit I bought and I still use it for my son.  The other was for my Dad to keep him warm in the hospital before hie died.  Both were easy, quick and fun but I never really considered myself a quilter. I still don't.  I prefer apparel sewing.

Then again, any reason to go fabric shopping, right?

Well, this is what I'm going to start with.  I bought this kit three years ago and never made the quilt.  The directions tell me to put all the squares in a big paper bag, shake them up, and just grab and sew without any thought to pattern.  Simple enough, right?

I have some fabric that I absolutely love left over from the quilt I made for my dad.  I'm going to cut those down and add them in.  They may not really match the theme but  I love the fabric too much to leave them sitting in my scraps pile. 

This quilt is supposed to be a hodge-podge anyways. I don't have the backing yet nor the batting but that will come in time. I don't want to quilt it myself because I don't really know how to yet so I just might hire someone with a long arm quilting machine to do it for me - if it isn't too expensive.

So, tell me friends.  Do you ever find yourself sewing things out of necessity rather than pleasure?  Did you like doing it or did you find it to be more of a chore? Or, do you even care what you sew, just as long as you can sew?

Have a great day and keep on sewing.