The Reason I Quilt

Warning – long post (rant), but I’ll throw some quilty pictures in to keep your interest.

Well, let’s start with my morning… I work 10 hour days so I can have Thursdays off to quilt. We have our 4 year old grandson (joy of my life!) overnight on Wednesdays. He has autism and his sleep patterns are often “out of whack” so we like to give the kids one night a week to get a good night’s sleep. I usually take him to school on Thursday morning and then come home to a fun filled day of quilting (after errands). This Thursday they had a progress evaluation scheduled so he got to stay at Nana’s until my son picked him up at 10:00.

(our cherub with Grampa - sorry, but at least there is a quilt in the picture)

Next I had go to our cable/internet provider’s office to update out “plan”. But, just as I opened the garage door, the street plow went by (oh yes, more snow on Wednesday night – actually it is getting to the point if I wake up and it’s NOT snowing I do the happy dance), and blocked off my driveway. Our plowman is under the delusion that we are retired and do not need to be plowed out until after noon. Normally I would just bully my through, but the snowbanks are so high that I cannot see if someone is coming down our street and I do NOT want to get stuck at the end of the driveway AGAIN. So… I tried the telephone method. TWO hours later, I think I resolved that issue and all I have to do is take back a piece of equipment – NOT today!

 (a charm quilt I made with over 1000 different feedsacks)

So, now it is noon. I go to get the mail and “oh boy” there is our Sears bill WITHOUT the $188.00 credit it was supposed to have on it. I looked at the phone and considered getting a glass of wine! No, just relax, this one won’t take as long. I was right, only an hour an 45 minutes!

(center of a quilt I made with those wonderful Roberta Horton homespuns)

So, now it is almost 2:00 and I haven’t taken a stitch. I look around the sewing room at the 12 projects I thought I would get done today and decide to prioritize. I should do my double pink “Stars in a Time Warp”, but I am teaching a potholder quilt class next Saturday so I really need to work on some applique samples. I did some cutting and basting and said to heck with it.

 I really NEED to quilt. There is something about putting that little needle in my hand and rocking it through the quilt top that really relaxes me.

That is the reason I quilt!

People are always telling me, “Oh I wouldn’t have the patience to do all that hand quilting”. My response is, “I don’t have the patience NOT to”! I think we will all agree that the hardest part of quilting is finding the time to do it!