A good reason to stay home on a Friday night and NOT feel lame!

I think I've already made it clear in my "about me" section that I'm a homebody. I feel kinda lame some Mondays when everyone at work is talking about their weekends and I exclaim, "I had a great weekend!" Oh ... what did you do Molly? "Stayed home and sewed and baked and had dinners with the kids." Oh .... the looks of pity that I get ....

Well, Handmade my Heidi is organizing a sewing party for Friday, February 19th. Everyone can get all comfy and stay home and just sew on any old project they'd like. Now on Monday morning I can say I had a great weekend AND I was at a party with over 100 supercool women and we just had a ball! And I won't be lying.

This Is the Part I Hate **sigh**

Why must I constantly learn from mistakes? Ideally I would read a tutorial and follow instructions and slowly and carefully put a quilt together according to a meticulously planned out blueprint. But NOOOO…. I jump right in and sew like a maniac, change things at the last minute, and then **sigh** notice I’ve totally blundered. I swear I spend more time taking apart things and redoing them then I do actual productive sewing.

Sashing looks so easy on other people’s quilts. Why didn’t it occur to me that using a print with a straight pattern might be a little tricky? Or that I should at least attempt to line up the sashing between the blocks?

Seam ripper here I come. **sigh**

The Modern Quilting Question

The Modern Quilt Guild just posted this question: What does modern quilting mean to you?

Hmmm … I feel like I don’t have the right to even try and answer that question since I’ve only been quilting for roughly seven months. But then again maybe I will because I already feel like I’m part of a large community of people who love the creativity and the freedom of modern quilting. Also, part of the reason I wanted to start a blog is so I could get involved in fun things like this!

To me part of the joy of quilting is that I’m creating something useful and lasting for my loved ones. My quilts are really a part of who I am because I used my own eye and intuition of how I want the final outcome to look based on the intended recipient. Being flexible can make the quilts seem more like some sort of entity with it's own personality emerging. Sometimes I'll look at all my squares as I'm arranging and rearranging and thinking about sashing and I say, "what are you finally going to end up like little quilt?"

I can also use some non-traditional quilt sewing, such as making my seam allowance a tad bigger than ¼”. I want my quilts to be used and rolled around on the floor in and wadded up in a bed and then washed and washed and washed. I’ve raised three boys and delicate, gentle and “use with care” are just not in my vocabulary anymore. No one is shocked or aghast that I'm not following the rules (are you??? I hope not).

The whole virtual community of quilters I've encountered are the nicest, friendliest, most generous, helpful, extremely talented group of people I've ever encountered. I've learned all of my quilting skills and methods solely from these people on the internet. Maybe the technology is part of what makes this "modern" quilting.

Quality Control

I'm attempting to make some progress on my latest quilt but my quality control assistant hasn't decided if it's comfortable enough yet.

Long Distance Love

My boyfriend lives in Boston, which is five hours away, so we don't get to see each other every weekend. He is always here for the big occasions and major holidays but we haven't been together on Valentine's Day in four years.

It's hard to be apart but the fun thing is we've sent each other goodie filled Valentine packages each year. My package to him is usually homebaked cookies and doggie biscuits (for his DOG people) and, of course, the obligatory chocolates. But this year he is getting a huge surprise .... a quilt! He's not expecting it at all!! I'm so excited I can't wait to hear his reaction when he opens it! I even wrapped the packages in my crocheted chains.

I mailed the package today but had trouble deciding how much to insure it for ... how do you put a price on all that work?

Look What I Can Do!!! ......NOT

Behold the world’s worst crochet chain….. and please ignore the cluttered coffee table in the background. (Cleaning up the coffee table is something I only do while watching “Hoarders” on A & E)

My mom tried to teach me to crochet when I was young and I never progressed beyond the chain part. Spurred on by the beautiful afghans I’ve been seeing in blogland lately I’ve become determined to learn how to crochet. My cool niece and I signed up for a class at our local library and I was just sure I’d just catch right on and start whipping up an afghan that night. Imagine my surprise when my two hands just couldn’t communicate with each other!

Don’t worry I’m not giving up! I’m going to be posting a picture of a granny square soon. I will ….. I will …. I will….

February To Do List

February is a pretty uneventful and blah month so I've decided to make it a productive month. The quilt for my sweet niece Jamie will probably be the next quilt-a-long quilt pinwheels. I just got some Hope Valley and can't wait to see it in a quilt. Well, actually I'm a little intimidated by it .... I hate cutting into designer fabric. Well, truthfully this will be the FIRST time I'm cutting into designer fabric. I'm such a quilting virgin!