Monday, January 19, 2015

Recent Quilting Projects

I'm so grateful for the local quilting group I've discovered.  I enjoy having a craft to work on, and I think I'm just burned out from knitting (not that I was ever very good at it).  It's just a great little break for me to be able to to get away one (and sometimes two!) evenings a night to just sit and quilt with other ladies.  I'm the youngest one in the group by far, and I stand out from the other members in various other ways....but in some ways, it's really good to get a glimpse of the world outside of my little bubble.

I finished my baby quilt, which was the first project we all did in the group.  Right now, it's hanging on a quilt rack in Stella's room, adding a pretty pop of color to the corner.  At some point - when I figure out what the heck I want to do with Stella's bedroom - I hope to hang it on her wall.



I mentioned before how our instructor was having us slowly make a queen-size quilt via "mystery blocks of the month."  The idea is that she tells you ahead of time how much to buy of various fabrics (of your choosing), and each month, hands you the pattern to assemble one square.  By the end of a year, you can join the blocks all together to create a quilt.

Well, instead of moving on to a second project like most of the other quilters, I've just been working on my blocks-of-the-month (which my instructor was nice enough to give me all the patterns for at once).  Fabric isn't cheap, so I want to use what I have, and wait awhile before I spend a bunch of money to start a new quilt.

I have 7 out of 12 blocks finished so far... (colors chosen to match our now-purple bedroom)


7 comments:

  1. Those blocks are so beautiful! Maybe someday I'll add quilting to my list of hobbies - I don't think I have the time or patience for it yet, but I love the finished product!

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  2. Quilting definitely does take a long time, but I feel like you get a lot of little pops of "instant gratification" in between that help to carry you through. It takes awhile to finish the entire quilt top, but you often assemble it block-at-a-time, and each of those is it's own little work of art. Also, it's really pretty easy. As long as you can use the absolute most basic features on a sewing machine, you're good!

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  3. That purple quilt is going to be beautiful! Maybe this is a stupid question... How does this quilting group thing work? I assume it's at some sort of... Center? (As opposed to someone's house??) and does everyone lug along their own sewing machine every week?

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  4. Wow ... those purple blocks are turning out so beautifully!! The finished quilt is going to be amazing.

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  5. When we lived in Minnesota, the ladies in the women's group at one of Jon's churches invited me to come and tie quilts with them. I was reluctant to go but it ended up being one of the best days of my life. I finally got a sense of why quilting bees were such awesome things in pioneer days -- it was a day when women could let down their hair and take a break from real life.

    I'm also totally used to being the youngest in settings like this. It can be irritating sometimes to hear women tell me that they have kids my age or that they're old enough to be my grandmother but it's also nice to sit and listen to their stories.

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    Replies
    1. Yes! I love the idea of women getting together to do the work they would otherwise be working on alone. It takes a necessary task and turns it into a chance to be social, relax a little, exchange news and ideas...

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  6. Your quilt is coming along so nicely! I don't think I have enough patience or am enough of a perfectionist to be a quilter. Cutting all the tiny pieces - whew!!

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