Quilting addiction

Quilting! I'm hooked! I can't stop!

For me it's one of those rare things that sometimes comes along in a person's life that takes you to a new level. Something that 'clicks' with you right off the bat and you take to like a duck to water. It feeds the creative juices. LOL!

I love the thrill of looking through quilting magazines and finding a quilt that I want to try to create. I love choosing the fabrics to put in just the right places. I love the colors and the patterns.

My husband teases me about buying large pieces of fabric just to cut them into small pieces to sew back together again.

"Yes", I tell him, "That's true, but the pieces get sewn back together in a new more beautiful pattern than before."

I love how, depending on which fabric you put where, it makes the same quilt pattern look like a totally different quilt. You can make the same quilt pattern many times and it never looks the same. Each one is better than the last!

It all started for me about 6 years ago. My friend Connie was a quilter and she told me about a quilting course that was starting that spring on 8 Saturdays every 2 weeks. I was still teaching elementary school full time then and wasn't sure at first that I wanted to commit that much time. I had planned to learn to quilt after I had retired, I reminded myself. But in the end, I signed up for the course and haven't looked back since! The instructor, Chris was very knowledgeable and patient with us. She taught us an amazing amount of useful skills for beginners ( as I later realized!)

She taught us how to choose our fabrics; we could choose whatever color we wanted, but had to have at least 1 dark fabric, 1 light fabric and some medium shades. We learned how to fold our fabric to make handling it easier: Fold it lengthwise with the salvage edges (uncut bound edges) together. Slide the creases out with your hand, then fold it again ( 4 layers of fabric).

Chris showed us how to use our rotary cutters to cut a straight edge. "Put the fabric you want to 'keep' under your ruler, she said, and double check the measurement, then cut along the ruler edge away from yourself. Always lock your cutter when you put it down."

She impressed upon us the importance to sewing accurate 1/4 inch seams, pressing out those seams properly, and recutting your fabric periodically to make sure the edge is straight.

We learned how to make 12 different sampler blocks in that beginners course that spring. We were supposed to make 2 of each block for 'homework' for the following class with our fabrics in different places ... I was hooked right from the first day! I loved the thrill of putting the little squares and rectangles together which I had cut so meticulously to make the bigger blocks. Like building a jigsaw puzzle. (Although I was never very good at jigsaw puzzles. LOL!)

I became ambitious and decided to start big! I was going to make a queen sized quilt for our bed!

And so it began...

(.... More about that to come. :)

Sometimes as I'm lying in bed in the morning enjoying the early rays of the sun sliding through the lace curtains, I can 'feel' my quilting 'calling' me from downstairs. I think it's become an addiction!

Carola