More Tolkien Quilt Brainstorming

I've been thinking a lot about the Tolkien quilt, getting psyched for my upcoming weekend chance to work on it again. I think that I originally made it relatively 'plain' because I intended to do something fancy in those blocks, or at least the plain green ones. But since getting it back out again, and just wanting to finish it, I was trying to figure out what now to do with all those plain blocks, that would look nice, but not take forever.

But the more I think on this, the less I want to just rush through it to get it done. For starters, the whole reason I began a Tolkien quilt was in honor of Tolkien's work (especially Lord of the Rings). I mean, that book was a major, integral part of my life. I am sure I would not be going too far in saying I wouldn't be who I am today had I not been influenced by LotR.

I first read Lord of the Rings when I was only 12. I read it several times a year for several years, then every single year (always right after Christmas I'd get in the mood to read it again) for many years. I haven't read it straight through now for about 10 years, but that was a lot of Tolkien reading over the years. It influenced me so much growing up, and throughout my life. It has always been a haven I could escape to whenever the need arose. It's a place I love more than any I've ever seen (well, with the possible exception of Oregon, but then Oregon is the Shire).

Why, then, should I fluff through this project just to move on to something else? So I am going to rethink my work on this project. I want to go back to making this something special as I initially envisioned, and create something that at least maybe will come close to capturing the passion I have for Tolkien and his work.

I had some good ideas this week, but unfortunately they involved applique. Since I've already put the quilt together, and quilted the center motif, I'm not really sure I want to try to start a massive applique project on it now.

So I'm conjuring up other ideas. I'm thinking of some pretty fancy quilted designs in the plain blocks, ones that represent some of my favorite parts of Tolkien's world. Granted, I'm going to have to do some serious practice on machine freehand quilting to pull off what I am now envisioning, but ... so? I can do that.

I'm also considering how I might add some embroidery.

You know, I better think this through carefully ... I haven't quilted too much yet, it's not too late ... I could still take the pins out and do work on individual blocks, I think ... ??

On the flip side, I don't want to overcomplicate the project so much that I actually never do get it done.

So ... we'll see what I decide and/or come up with this weekend, but it's going to be more than just a quick throwing it together. The Book of Kells will always be there, when I'm ready for it.

In other news ... heat wave. It's about 40 degrees this morning. After waking up to 5 degrees yesterday, with it never going much about 20, this is downright balmy. Today I have to make a pan of lasagna (to freeze, to have something on hand at my dad's for emergencies, like Thursday when my dinner plans fell apart due to eggplant gone bad), take dad his groceries and make us dinner, and see if he needs any laundry done. After that, I don't know ... there's an Irish music session over the border in Sharon, Pennsylvania tonight that the Dread Reverend wants to go to. He's been telling me I "should" get out of the house more (I tend to get hermitish in the winter), but in truth, I'd rather just come home and quilt. Is that so wrong??

So I haven't decided what I'm doing about that yet. But right now, for a few hours, I'm going back to work on the Tolkien quilt!