mississaugaquiltersguild.ca

I love April. It is the month of tulips and magnolias, although not usually as early as this year! It is my birthday month (don’t ask). It is the only time of year you can buy “PEEPS” in yellow and pink and purple – pure sugar fix if you haven’t tried one, it is marshmallow covered in sugar – that I can’t resist. It is the month of the Guild quilt retreat; four days with fabric, my machine, good company and good food. 

So the question is what projects do I take to work on this year? For previous retreats, I filled a very large suitcase with dozens of projects. But last year, I didn’t finish a single thing. The drive home was very frustrating. When Dave asked for a show and tell when I arrived home, it was sort of embarrassing to have nothing to show for four days away from home.

This year, I thought it best to approach this in an organized and thoughtful way and identify some criteria to guide the packing process.

• Maybe only projects that need “tweaking” (aka UFOs)?
• What about new projects that I am inspired and motivated to start and hopefully finish?
• Do I want to practice a technique or learn something new?
• What about people or events I want to do something special for?
• How many projects? Ignore this … when the suitcase is filled I will re-evaluate and repack. I expect this will happen three or four times over the next four weeks.

Where to start? I decided to go through all my boxes and all my “idea” books and see what might work. Step one was to pull out boxes from my “quilting project closet.” Of the 12 boxes, only three were even remotely interesting and inspiring. Then I went down to my sewing corner and went through all the project boxes downstairs. Want to take a guess on the number of boxes I pulled out and how many binders I flipped through? Of the 36 boxes of different shapes and sizes, I pulled 12. Finally I went through my binders of patterns and in search of ideas – another 15 projects.

So what did I find – things that would motivate me, skills to develop, quick things to finish and something for friends and family. Next step was to go to the Etobicoke show to see if there was some inspiration there. The outcome, use the retreat to build skills and try new things which would of course include quick things, being motivated and friends/family. After spending $125, I was no further ahead, but I do have a new book to inspire me, new thread to practice my machine quilting and new fabric necessary for those projects that inspire me.

So my project for today is to start a list and pull projects together and then use my tired and true priority setting strategy. I flip a coin – heads it goes to the retreat, tails it stays home. But … if my gut tells me this is a mistake, if I start to feel really sad, if I start to fondle the fabric, well all bets are off and it goes to the retreat! Stay tuned to see how many projects and if I need 2 suitcases for fabric!

I came home from the guild meeting last week with memories of the past haunting me and thinking about the future dreams of the guild. It was great for past chairs to share their stories, especially Karen and Joan who were president before I joined.

There is a dream I have had for a long time. One where my family would listen intently to my stories about my quilting life, rather than dozing off. Where they would be eager to know what my next project was and ask questions like “mom what are you working on” or “love those blocks on the wall”. I am looking forward to the day when my friends don’t burst into fits of laughter when they see my quilting room and the six rolling drawer storage units full of fabric and the 40 plus rubbermaid boxes of UFOs (I haven’t told them about the boxes in the cupboard and the cart in the laundry room). But most of all, I dream that one day my daughter will take up quilting. The dream may become a reality; last year she decided to make a quilt for a wedding present. Today, I am quite sure that most of those dreams will never be reality for me but I think my daughter might have the right DNA.

But first some background information of another sort. One of the hot new “things” going around the internet these days is “what I do” picturamas. There are six pictures each with a caption like, “what my family thinks I do” or “what society thinks I do” and they always end with “what I think I do” and finally, “what I really do.”

When I opened my email this morning there was a message from my daughter with a link to a website she had found about “what she thinks I do”. Take a look and see for yourself (if you click on that black box with the photos you get a larger version). http://katiesquiltsandcrafts.blogspot.com/2012/02/quilters.html To paraphrase Sally Field “She gets me, she really gets me!” It was even more ironic because of all the old photos and stories we saw on the poster boards of the guild anniversary dinners.

Jane

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.