Return to Quilting!

Yes folks, it's apparently time for another of my come-and-go enthusiasms to return to me - quilting!

From "The World of Amish Quilts", by Rachel Pellman.

I remember quilting with my Mom when I was a girl - probably not "helping" as much as I thought I was, but we used to make applique baby quilts together, and it was fun.  When I was in Waterloo at school I discovered Amish quilts and was blown away by the bold colours and deceptively simple patterns, so unlike anything I'd seen before, and the intricate stitching.  (I highly recommend Rachel Pellman's "The World of Amish Quilts".  I used to visit the UW library just to leaf through that book for a few minutes between classes.  The picture here is taken from the Amazon "look inside" feature).  I started quilting again, including a traditional Amish star baby quilt for the birth of a cousin, and a massive Carpenter's Wheel that I was quite proud of.

Sometime along the way it fell by the wayside - the second-hand sewing machine my Mom had given me years earlier stopped working well, and knitting became a fierce enthusiasm for a long time (not that you'd know it from the single post I've made here about it, and that was an ugly project to boot, although I still maintain it wasn't my fault).

This all started again on the island two weeks ago, when my Mom took me to a meeting of the Island Quilter's Guild.  I met the talented Jackie White, and she asked me if I was going to start quilting again.  I replied evasively and told myself I should finish some knitting UFOs first (those are UnFinished Objects if you're not familiar with the term), but then my devious Mom sent me the link to Jackie's blog.  I read some of it (okay, all of it, and in one day too) and noticed she noticed an Etsy store called The Intrepid Thread several times.  I had to follow the link, of course, and check out the "sale" category because that's what I do, and we all know what happens next, right?

I always have a hard time deciding how many fabrics to buy, and how much, unless I sit down and design the quilt first.  BUT, she had some bewitching packages of 1/2 yards all from the same collection, and the one at the right called to me.  I loved all the purple with the pop of pink, which I wouldn't have thought to throw in, but looks absolutely perfect.  I wanted to order an extra 1/2 yard of one of the fabrics to make sure I had a good border for it, and in emailing the merchant to find out about shipping for multiple items, she mentioned that she can fit up to 8 yards in a flat-rate envelope.  WELL!   Clearly anything less than 7.5 yards meant I was wasting shipping money.  I put more of this collection - which is endearingly called 1001 Peeps, by the way - in my basket and was off to the races.

It's not here yet, but I uploaded shots of all the fabrics into MS Paint and I've been virtually quilting.  I think I have a plan, but I don't want to post the image just yet... it's like writing a novel, you know... if you talk about it too much, then you use up the excitement and never get it actually written!