How I Fell into Quilting

This is a Watercolor one of the harder types of quilts I have done because the pattern is achieved through the tones of fabric and not the pattern or color.  We spent so much money on fabric because each type of  block must be made without using the same fabric twice!  But this is made by sewing strips rows of 2 inch strips together and then cutting.  A long process, but one that I love.  

I've been pretty good about writing here every week. I admit I have the time, but not always the willpower. There are just some days when I become completely overwhelmed. Drag down by the nothing that is my life. I am a normal human who has normal feelings. I try very hard to remain positive, but there are moments when that just doesn't seem possible and I feel like I am drowning in the negative. The feelings of loneliness, frustration and fear slams into me like a tsunami ocean wave that knocks me off balance and I start rehashing my old injustices. This has been one of those weeks, plus my poor 18 month old kitty died. We knew there was not much hope when we found out he had pneumonia, so I'm going to tell you the story about how I stumbled into Quilting.

Quilting did not appeal to me.  I am not very good at hand work.  Your  stitching looks like your handwriting and I have ugly handwriting.  My mother would give me small projects to do and I would become very discouraged when I would see the picture and compare my own work to it.  I have a perfectionist streak running through me.  If I put the time and the effort into something then I want it to look good.  My stitching is not pretty.  Plus I did the things my mother was into and she did not like cutting out all of the fabric pieces by hand with scissors.  So Quilting was off the table in our list of projects.

This is an example of one of my early quilts.  I found the animals on sale in a panel at a quilt store.  I cut it up to form the center squares.  I kept this one because the border was so difficult.  I figured out the exact math to get the colors to remain in order

Then one of my only friends Holly Jones, took a quilting class offered as a one-day project in one of our Church Super Saturday Homemaking days.  She was able to make a Christmas tree skirt from strips of fabric.  Holly showed me the project and raved about how easy it was and how fun.  I was skeptical, I was only 19 at the time, but it was Holly telling me these things and I trusted Holly.  The women in my ward(congregation) were so excited about the class that they asked the teacher to do another. 

So Holly convinced me to take the class.  She said we could take the class together and it would be so fun.  I loved to do anything with Holly even work if I had to.  I was in college now so I had some free days.  I then talked my mother into taking the class with me.  We went to the teacher to work out a deal.  My mother had connections to some very nice fabric and we were able to traded a bolt of very high quality muslin so both of us could take the class without paying actual money. 

Two of my students from my quilting class here in Virginia.  If you have never sewn I teach you how to do the "Trip around the world" pattern on the left.  If you have sewn before then you can pick your project and I will help you accomplish your goal.  The pattern on the right is the popular "Jar Quilt"  It is made from only fruit and vegetable fabrics.














We did not have a portable machine and had to borrow one of the teachers.  I am so grateful to her for being willing to let us use her machine because if she had been stingy about it I would not have found something so near and dear to my heart.  Now that I am teaching it is very important to me that I make the tools available for someone to try and see if they like the process.  I will provided all the fabrics for a lap size quilt and the use of my machine with the condition that the finished quilt be giving away to someone in need.  We have already had one machine break!  It's okay, it was about the right age for something to go wrong and we have multiple sewing machines.  I was kind of happy because we replaced it with a better one.

In the quilting class I was introduced to the new tool of quilting, the rotary cutter.  What a beautiful piece of engineering.  With a cutting board and ruler I could cut all my pieces fast and straight.  Then the teacher taught us about using strips and how to sew them together and then cut.  It blew my mind.  I started to look at quilting designs and instead of seeing the little pieces each cut out by hand, I saw the way to form the pattern using bigger pieces.  It was like the Matrix or when people talk about taking drugs, when I first felt my mind open up to the process of figuring out the easiest way to accomplish a difficult pattern.  It still plays like a movie in my head.                      
It is beautiful. 

This is a Thomas the Train engine block that I figured out how to do myself.  My nephew is a huge Thomas the train fan and I owed him a quilt.  It took me forever, but I figured out all the math to produce this block.
My favorite thing to do is figure out the exact amount of yardage needed of each fabric to finish the quilt with nothing left.  I hate having left over pieces.  It drives me nuts.  So for many piecing the quilt top is sewing a bunch of squares or triangles together, but for me it is much more.  It is the process.  It is the magic of starting with solid pieces of fabric and forming them into shapes with a few cuts and a few seams.  I love it!                                   And this is the quilt I made from the blocks. 
                                                                                       I used the border fabric to inspire the design.

Now the funny part is that Holly never took the class she had been so persuasive that I should take.  I do not believe she has ever made a quilted thing again while I have gone on to make hundreds, maybe I am in the thousands now that it has been close to 20 years of sewing.   I have sold my work to anyone that will buy, but with the cost of fabric and other materials it is impossible to get the amount of money out of a finished quilt with the amount of time put into it.  I have learned to do smaller projects and to sell the quilt tops to get more bang for my effort.

I wish to publicly thank Holly Jones for encouraging me to try something new and Gail Lafoy, the teacher who gave me so much.  And of course my mother who is willing to follow me in all my crazy schemes.  We now sell quilting square sets on ebay to allow us to buy what fabric we like.  It keeps us busy and we are able to get a little money to fuel our fabric addiction.

The picture on the upper left is a quilt made from the set of Disney themed fabrics we sell on ebay.  The border is done in a crazy quilt design.  And the pictures on the bottom left is made from Vintage Barbie fabrics and the Quilt on the bottom is from our Beatle fabrics.  I made using the sets we sell to show the different pattern you can make with the square sets.