Tis the seaon to stitch

I have sewn for years. For years I said that one day I would quilt. One day... slowly life simplified or my interests changed. One day I realized that the season for beginning to quilt had arrived. I had margin in my life where I could pick up the dream of learning to quilt.

When I lived in North Carolina several years ago my friend Laura started me on my quiliting pathway. She took time to teach, and insist, on good technique and form. She introduced me to the ruler, rotary cutter and going slow. Slow is not my nature, so quilting has been an ongoing exercise in discipline, one that shows my failures in wonky seams and icky stitching. I begain a railfence pattern. Life kept interfering so we did not come to the end of the project when I left NC. She graciously mailed me the instructions and I finished it a year later, on my own.

Since that time I have worked my way through the book that she sent me, learning a few new patterns and experimenting with color and fabrics. I have found that I am in LOVE with color... the choosing, the mixing and the fun of selecting fabrics and surprising myself with the results. I guess I should not be surprised as I am one of a line of artists in the family tree and so it kind of makes sense... but it has been a delight to find such joy in the journey.

In the past few years I have taken over the dining room as my quilting/sewing headquarters and continue to create. I have figured out that to quilt well one must quilt... its an investment of time or $$. I think I have more time than $$ so I do alot of sewing, evaluating and climbing the learning curve. I have found that I can experiment and bless others with my pieces that I see the oops's in and they just see the beauty. A double blessing and it doesnt feel like i am just doing meaningless lesson work in the process.

As I began to need to 'qulit" the quilts I was working on I also found that it was another time vs money deal. For a mere 1K I could buy the wonderful Bernina attachment that would take all the work out of freemotion quilting, but I dont own a Bernina. So, I spent the time and now hours later my stitching seems to be regulating itself on its own. I think it was worth the time invested as I am continuing to be able to quilt my work as I go.

A friend once showed me her stash of tops... they filled a laundry basket and then some... all waiting for the final glory... the quilting. I decided then that i would need to discipline myself to not get too far ahead of my stitching... rather keep quiliting along with the stithcing so I did not end up with UFO's ... things I am well familiar with from sewing clothing that has been cut out but not stitched and is now out of fashion or outgrown.

As I have quilted there have been lessons learned, projects done and joy to be shared. Since I enjoy writing it seemed time to start this blog to share my journey and the creativity of it with others.