Blog – Page 2 – Quilts and Cats

I love to make things, and I’ve had more than my share of hobbies over the years. But when I decided to learn how to quilt, I was a goner. I made my first quilt in the spring of 2017, I think. I didn’t know any quilters, so I YouTubed it. I found “The easiest beginner quilt ever” or something like that, and I got to work. The woman on the video didn’t say anything about what makes a “good” quilt, so I had no idea my corners were supposed to match up. She didn’t talk about choosing the right colors or the fact that there are so many different qualities of fabric, so I just used a charm pack I’d gotten from Wally World. She didn't mention binding, she just showed how to do an "envelope" style quilt. But it was well presented, and easy to follow, and her sample quilt was adorable. So I did it. I made my first quilt. Have a look: Cute, huh? Lots of problems, I know, but hey, it was my very first quilt. And I was hooked. I found a local quilt group, and they were more than happy to welcome a newbie into their fold. With their guidance, I learned about the most basic things: Yes, corners are supposed to match up; Yup, consistent seams are a good thing, and just for fun, try making all of them a quarter-inch; Fabrics, like everything else, come in a wide variety of quality, and I should choose wisely. Cheap was good for practice, but when I start making “real” quilts, get the good stuff; Precut packs are very helpful if you don’t trust your own judgement when it comes to selecting colors (which I didn’t, and I still don’t); Patterns are actually there for a good reason, and yes, you can learn to read them; There’s a difference between ironing and pressing; The sewing machine matters, but don’t get more machine than you need; and It’s much more helpful—and tremendously more fun—to sew with other people instead of alone with YouTube! The more I sewed, the better I got (funny how that works, isn’t it?). The better I got, the more I wanted to learn and the more confidence I gained. Being around these learned ladies was a hundred times better than trying to teach myself in 2-D with a television screen, and our sewing group met on a regular basis. Until I moved. It was hard saying goodbye to these first quilting mentors of mine, but I’d gained so much from them, and I knew I wanted to repeat the experience. So once the moving part was over, I went in search of a local quilting group that I might join. I found one, just fifteen minutes away, and they meet every month. With my newfound friends, I learned even more about quilting (for example, I hadn’t been “quilting” at all—I’d been “piecing.” The quilting was when you added your quilt top to a layer of batting and a backing, then sewed it all together. But then all of you reading this already knew that, right?). I learned that quilting is easier (and much more fun) when you have a longarm machine to do it, and I learned that there is no way I could afford one of those machines (my dream machine would be almost forty grand. Yeah, I know….). But there were ladies in the group who do have a longarm machine, and they would gladly quilt my layers (for a charge, of course. Quilting is not a cheap hobby!). There are also ladies in this group who are members of other guilds, and through one of these wonderful people, I was able to join a second guild and go on my first-ever quilting retreat. What a wonderful experience! Twenty or thirty like-minded women, sewing and quilting, talking and laughing, for four or five days together. It was like a slumber party, but for “queenagers” (a term I got from Facebook, that describes post-teens who “don’t identify as being old.” Don’t you just love learning new words?). Anyway, a lot of laughing, a lot of learning, and very little sleep all add up to a fun, unforgettable experience that opened new doors for me. Then Covid hit. That meant no more guild meetings, either locally or in far-off places. Quilting was still a thing for me, but it was no longer the shared learning experience I had come to treasure… …until my far-off guild got a zoom account. Instead of meeting monthly, our guild started meeting weekly, just to sew together. Eventually, sewing and quilting became an almost-daily activity on our zoom account, and people would join in when they could. I became much more productive, learning the whole time and producing quilt tops that I would have never dreamed possible way back when, as I was stitching up my first crib-sized quilt alone in my living room, with the help of a stranger on YouTube. And oh, yeah, somewhere along the way, I learned the most important accessory of all for successful quilting: you absolutely must, without question, have a cat. But then, you met Handsome Sam last time.