Quilting 101

I'm not sure where all my blog commenters went. I've missed you. Even my husband, who lives for the comments, asked why people weren't commenting. It can't be my bad breath or the fact that I didn't get dressed today that has turned you off. It must be that I am not talking about subjects stimulating for my intelligent audience. So here we go.... quliting. I knew that would draw you in.

Yesterday I went out to a friend's house for a new-fangled quilting bee. It was so entirely fun. I loved every minute. The ladies who were there were from my MOPS group (mothers of pre-schoolers). Our host has a long-arm machine quilting business and was generous with her home and invited us over to make a table runner and then quilt it on her machine.

There were 5 of us piecing away. The patterns was sort of complicated and made me think more than normal. I was going to do my taxes this week, but I'll have to wait now since I used all my brain power for the next month.

We all brought our own fabric and it was interesting to see people's personalities come out in their selections.

And then it came time to machine quilt. Oh, it was fun. The machine stitches when you move the handles and no matter how slow or fast or jerky you go, the stitches are uniform. I LOVED it and did an overall "meander." Our host does fancy patterns on her quilts; they are breathtaking and it inspired me to finish one of the quilt projects I have started and have her machine quilt it for me. My inspiration will probably fade as my brain power returns, so this could be my last quilting post for awhile. Too bad for you.

We all got a chance to quilt our own projects. Some said, "Oh, that was fun!" while others said, "Ah, I didn't like that. It was way too hard." Different peronalities again.

I brought home my table runner and put the binding on it today. I spent an hour hand stitching about 1/3 of it and then my brain power returned in a small spurt and I got out the Stitch Witchery (fabric bond -- like glue). I bonded the rest with the iron and you seriously can't tell the difference between my hour's worth of work and the 5 minute lazy woman's work.

My dear mom once received a table runner as a gift and proclaimed, "I love it! It will cover my crack perfectly!" It's been a family joke ever since. And, interestingly this table runner does perfectly cover my crack -- the crack in my table that is.

I am so happy with how my project turned out. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the patterned piece on the end is a print of vintage spice packages. I fell in love with it and purchased way too much. Part of my purchasing enough fabric for about 14 table runners was due to the fact my children were running around the store playing with fabric sample quarters. Emma pronounces fabric like fag-gitt, so hearing her say, "I love this fag-gitt!" was disturbing to say the least. I asked her to please refer to it as clothe.

These are the table runners done by the ladies. Mine is the top middle one. We all used the same pattern and I loved seeing how the different fabric choices brought out a uniqueness in each project. I could make a beautiful parallel between the quilts and how God weaves and blesses our lives, but my kids are whining and I think it is dinner time. Gotta run!

So there you have it -- a stimulating quilting post. If this doesn't bring on the commenting, I don't know what will.