Christmas Mystery Quilt Project begins next week!

At a blog I'm sure I must have found via Mama Pea's blogsite, comes this project:

http://erikhomemade.typepad.com/erik_homemade/2010/09/holiday-2010-mystery-quilt-project.html

It's going to be a 3-dimensional wall-hanging. We've lived in our house since Dec. of 2006 and at this moment we have exactly 11 items hnging on our walls. And none are in the living room. Only one is in the the dining area, a picture of Christ. These 11 items are hanging only because there were existing nail holes in the walls. Ask any of my siblings; we have an aversion to pounding nails into walls, passed down from our father, I believe. I think this was likely enhanced when we each lived in rented/leased dwellings. Interestingly for me, Rhett 'suffers' this same aversion, hence, a serious lack of wall decor in our little Tara. I intend to pound my first new nail hole when this project is finished.

Erik calls for scraps of red, green, and beige or white fabric. Here's my assembly so far.

Reds (can you tell I'm partial to the darkish reds?)

greens (hmmm, only 3, but I've got a few yards of that dark one in the back)

beiges and whites (the one on the far left is my favorite)

As you might notice, I am lacking the greens. This is a scrap project, which already poses a challenge for me. I don't quilt much and haven't been for long, so I don't have a lot of scraps. In addition, my last (well, current really) quilt is a scrap quilt of greens and yellows, so all my green scrap went to that. They were summer-spring greens though, so admittedly I didn't have much Christmas green in the first place. Anybody want to donate green scraps for this project?

Here's a thought I had today about fabric . Until this morning, I have never been able to buy fabric without a project in mind. I mean, I can walk by a fabric and think, "Wow, that's cute/pretty/neat (insert other appropriate adjective here)." But I have always thought it extravagant to just buy fabric for no reason other than that I liked the fabric. Today, though, I was pulling out the fabric for these photos and the thought struck me that many (if not most) of my non-LDS friends and family think I'm more than a little "off" for having a basement full of food (in short, our church encourages a year's supply of food storage in case of emergency or in case of financial lean times, which by the way, we have experienced recently when Rhett was a SAHD). I have many pounds of wheat in my basement "for no reason."

The wheat is in the shiny foil pouches. Man, our food storage area is a mess.

Of course, someday I'll use it. That's the thought that hit me today. I have all that food for no particular reason except for that someday I will definitely use it. Ta - da! My rationale for buying fabric! It's not exactly a necessity for storage (unless the end times come) but there's the logic anyway...someday I'll use it! I think my little hobby is about to get more expensive. But how can Rhett, a devoted fan of food storage, argue with the logic?

(Food storage disclaimer: We do not have a year's worth. As you can see, I do store food that I actually use frequently, like lite mayo, pasta, pumpkin, various canned soups, etc. It's not all wheat and beans down there. In fact, you will note in the center and a little up in the photo that I buy essentials like Giaradelli Brownie mix in bulk at Costco.)

Back to the mystery quilt project. Erik has mentioned it's 3-dimensional, so I'm hoping it's something like an advent calendar. But more likely, it's probably just embellished with Christmas and winter-ish doo-dads (love that word 'doo-dad'!). It's the 3-dimensional part of this that has me interested enough to participate. One more week to go before the next set of directions!