mississaugaquiltersguild.ca

Today is “get your quilting life organized for 2012” day. The day has started relatively late, heck it is almost noon but it is Christmas vacation after all! Should I organize my sewing space or should I focus on my volunteer quilting jobs (BOM convenor, quilt show convenor) or should I plan out my quilting projects for the year? This needs some thought; maybe I need to review the past year to really figure out where to focus.

My quilting 2011 was pretty amazing. I challenged myself to do things I have never done before. I took the Canadian Quilting Association judging program, certain that I would fail, but surprisingly the course instructors Kathleen Bissett and Anna Hergert continue to encourage me to keep plugging away at it. It has given me a totally different perspective and challenged me to try new things. I, the quilter who only sews straight lines and pieced blocks, took an “art quilt” class! The challenge of doing my own design just about drove me around the bend but I am in love with my work so far (note to self: UFO project to be finished in 2012). I took classes in machine quilting, colour theory and paper-cut applique (note to self: finish the class samples). Being the convenor for program and workshop was the best volunteer job ever. I started out shaking in my boots because I didn’t know what I was doing but once I decided that the goal was to offer a variety of opportunities to guild members and that I am a typical guild member, developing a program and finding speakers and teachers became easy. I learned so much and I got to know some incredible quilting artists and teachers.

I finally finished that flannel quilt for our bed – my first large bed quilt. The fabric is by Nancy Halverson and I bought it with some inheritance money in 2000 which means just thinking about the quilt design took over a decade. (note to self: need a new mantra “just pick a pattern”).  I simply adore her fabric: the colour, the design, the feel of the fabric. Did I say it was flannel? Do you know just how doggone heavy a queen sized flannel quilt can be? When I am working on the binding, Dave can lower the thermostat by 2 degrees! And it is no easy task to bind a flannel quilt by hand. There will be some sore fingers when this is done. (note to self: UFO to be finished for January guild meeting; no make that February; no make the goal to have the quilt on the bed by next winter).

My daughter Elaine’s “this is your life quilt” was also finished. She is going to graduate from university this spring and it started as a high school graduation project. Every month I would find a new novelty fabric that was just so “Elaine” – the bikinis and flip flops, the New York subway, the sudoku puzzles, the goldfish and the Beatles – and the quilt simply kept getting bigger. I finally stopped at a double bed size but have enough fabric for another quilt. So the next challenge was to make my son Joe a new quilt. Decided to use a couple of jelly rolls (Christmas present from Dave last year), signed up for a strip piecing kaleidoscope class and bought a fancy new ruler. Made one block, got all the strips sewn with the exception of one. Seems I have lost a strip (note to self: raid the batik stash and put this on the quilt retreat project list). Do I dare promise Joe this will take me less than five years?

The guild retreat in April was amazing; four full days and every night I closed down the sewing room and I didn’t finish a project. This year, I am changing my approach. One project for every day instead of a suitcase full of fabric with no quilting plan. Maybe I should start packing now.

After a guild meeting that focused on organizing your sewing space I went home and carved out a corner and devoted one entire wall of the family room just for quilting. I managed to put the rolling fabric drawers under a table that now is devoted for cutting, at least when it isn’t overflowing with fabric and supplies. All the thousands of pages of magazines that I have been ripping out for the past decade are now organized in twenty binders. I need to move the computer to another corner of the room so that the bookshelves and drawers are closer to me. I love my design wall, a piece of white flannel 10’ by 10’. Now all I need to do is learn how to use the new machine I bought a year ago, lessons start in February.

All this thinking has my brain swimming with project ideas and I think I need to hit the sewing room. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for planning.