The Voice = Quality Hand Binding

Sara's quilt came back from The Quilters Touch so it's binding time.  I've got my tiny applique needles, my lavender thread, my boyfriend's younger eyes (for threading) and THE VOICE!  I finished Allyson's a few weeks ago during the Battle Rounds and time just flew.  Who knew that multi-tasking would be so awesome?  Adam Levine is quite possibly the yummiest thing around.

There is something very Zen and calming about binding a quilt by hand.  Once I get in the zone, its one of the most relaxing things around.  Of course, I hate asking Matthew (boyfriend with younger eyes) to thread my needle all the time, but something about that tiny needle eye and the lavender thread just isn't working for me.  I've even got my reading glasses on, but I can't thread that darn needle!  It's a good thing I sew mostly by feel or it could be a mess. 

It's hard to believe that Sara's Sampler is almost done.  It's been folded up in a Rubbermaid tub for about 10 years.  I don't know why I never had it quilted...time, money, sadness at its being done and my baby being a big girl...who knows?  She and her sisters have been hammering on me pretty hard the last year or so to get their quilts out of the tub and onto a bed, so I have two down and only Katelyn's square in a square to get quilted.  It's a wonderful feeling of completion to have them done, but also a little sad, but I can't explain why.  Maybe its the end of a chapter?

Well, anyhoo, theirs may have taken over a decade to get done, but Baby Weston's I-spy was pieced, basted and practically quilted in a month.  If Godzilla hadn't mutinied on me yesterday, I would be binding his quilt instead.  Motivation is the key!

New Blog, first post...

Creativity gives me joy, whether it be sewing, scrapbooking, writing, composing, cooking...whatever.--Why?  Because I can...LOL, no really...it's because I'm driven to create something, anything.  The only problem is that I'm a process junkie.  It's never been the destination when I'm in the throes of whatever muse has me by the throat, its the journey.  Which is why I have so many flimsies, UFOs, partial scrapbooks, snippets of prose and song lying here and yon.  I'm okay with that BUT my family isn't.  They want their quilts and their scrapbooks and their cook books, etc., and they're tired of waiting. 

While surfing the web to find a longarm quilting service, I stumbled across Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville.  Her string piecing tutorial looked fun, so I bookmarked her and went about my business.  Then I was trying to figure out how to size setting triangles for a quilt I wanted to set on point...Google took me back to Bonnie.  Ways to organize my stash?  Bonnie again!  I had kind of given up on the quilting thing for a while until I found the website.  The Easy Street mystery caught my interest and I decided to go through my fabric again and OH!  the flimsies I found.

I decided to buckle down and start sending the flimsies out for quilting.  I found a wonderful long arm quilter, Debra Pugh at the Quilters Touch in Missouri who isn't fussy if every seam isn't straight and pressed or whether the border was obviously sewn by a beginner.  She thinks every quilt deserves to be quilted and she did a marvelous job on my first two.

Here's Allyson's quilt--started in 1999 and finished last month:

And then Sara's is all done too, started in 2000 and finished a few days ago:

My goals for 2013 are to have all the flimsies quilted, join a guild, attend some classes and get rid of all my crumbs and strings.  Along the way, I'm going to do mysteries, blog and keep enjoying the process with maybe a FEW products to show for it.

Later and happy creating!