Experience

 

Over the weekend, I met with two friends.  As we were talking, I about quilting, one of them asked about my experience at quilting.  She was wondering how I could just jump into all these projects of my mom’s and get stuff done so quickly.  I told her in some instances most of the work was already done.  I laughed when she gave me her look.  She tends to think I don’t give myself enough credit.  That might be a discussion for another day.  At any rate, I realized I probably hadn’t mentioned my past experience here in the blog.

I don’t remember my mother even not having a sewing project.  She may not have sat down to the sewing machine for days on end or finished a project on time, but she had projects galore.  When I was little, she didn’t have the patience to teach me.  In junior high, our home economics teacher taught a unit in sewing.  I was so excited.  We went to the Eureka Mercantile to pick out fabric and a pattern for a simple blouse.  I chose a flowered lavender print.  The fun ended there.

The teacher taught me one way of sewing.  Then my mother would rant and rave about the terrible techniques and made me fix everything.  By the time I finished that project, I hated it with a passion.  I also hated sewing.  I went back to being a daddy’s girl and chopped wood.  I didn’t take another sewing class in school.  I was never going to be a sewer.  Kind of funny when I look back at the whole situation.

Moving forward, I believe my mother-in-law gave me her old machine when the boys were little.  I was interested in quilting.  I loved the artistry of quilting.  I love shapes and colors.  I went home the next summer and my mom taught me the basic fundamentals of sewing a straight line and cutting fabric.  I am not sure what year this was, but I do know that when we moved to Helena, I did start sewing with a purpose.

From about 1998 to 2002, I sewed when I had time.  Of course, being a mom of two busy boys, working fulltime, and Guard weekends, I didn’t have a lot of time, but I would spend an entire weekend here and there doing nothing but sewing.  I loved it.  The problem is I never learned how to finish a quilt.  I also didn’t learn how to do the quilting part to any real extent.  I played with a little free motion stitching and stitch in a ditch on scraps.  In 2001, my sister-in-law was expecting her first baby.  I was so excited.  A baby quilt was the exact thing I needed to learn how to do everything.  The quilt is in my closet only partially done.  Little Eric only lived for a few minutes after being born early.  Soon after that, I found myself expecting.  I gave my sewing room to Madelle and packed everything away until this past summer.  I had accomplished one quilt face, numerous quilt blocks, a millennial quilt kit, and Eric’s unfinished quilt.  That was it.

Once I learned how to put on a binding and knot a quilt on Youtube this summer, I was able to fly with all of the projects.  Of course, the learning curve took me a bit through September.  Once I finished my first quilt, I have quite a lot of confidence in the simple quilting.  I don’t know how long it would take me to have to cut fabric into the right pieces and do an entire quilt from start to finish.  I do know that with Mom’s cut fabric and all the work she has done on so many, for this first little while, I will be able to get projects done rather quickly.  Well, until spring when I spend a lot of time playing outside.

So that is my experience and background. And here is my next finished project.  I found 50 sewn blocks in Mom’s stash.  I laid them out on the bed.  To use all 50, the quilt would have been enormous.  Instead, I decided to make two lap quilts out of the blocks.  Here is the first one.  I tied the quilt, so it went rather quickly.  I will do a different technique on the second one and discuss that when it is finished.

 

I am also excited that I have accomplished my list for January.  I was hoping to get two wall hangings and two quilts done.  Yay, I did it.  Anything else I accomplish will be binding on the quilt.