Sunday, August 07, 2011

My favorite part...

My favorite part of quilting………..I have thought about it a lot. There’s the choosing the pattern—I love… I study quilt photos constantly. It’s relaxing to me. Some people workout to the television, or music, I study quilt pictures. I like choosing the fabrics and cutting out the pieces. One of my favorite things to do is to total up the individual pieces for a total count of a quilt. Piecing and bring those individual squares ranks pretty high. I just love bringing it to life.


While I don’t love stretching a quilt—the machine quilting is the most challenging part for me and it’s something I want to work at getting better at. Bindings are addictive because you are just so close to being finished with the project. When a quilt is completed, I have put time and energy into it…. Most of the time I’m tired of it and I’m pretty hard on myself as to whether I did a ‘good enough’ job.

But I have spent time thinking about it this weekend—my very favorite part of quilting is taking that quilt out and covering a table, covering a bed, hanging it up—maybe throwing it over a ladder-back chair.

I have 4 quilts pieced…. Four of them not quilted. I’ve even blogged about getting them quilted and I put it off—I think it’s because stretching them onto the frame is the hardest part for me. I want to complete them so this afternoon I got one stretched and part of the way machine quilted. For those that don’t relish that “ladder-back chair” experience---to have the un-quilted projects on the shelf is no big deal… but it bothers me… and I’ve promised myself that I’m giving at least 30 minutes a night this week to work at getting these projects done. I’m working from easiest to hardest because I’m hoping to improve as I work at it.

This weekend Don ran 10.25 miles… he’s working toward a relay with Eric. I ran the pups twice on Saturday and a 4 mile workout this evening on the elliptical machine. I went to the farmer’s market and picked black-eyed susans from the roadside.

I played in the garden, knocked out the housework and got a nap after reading a few pages from my IPAD. This weekend was outstanding…. Boring to some, pretty much perfect to me.

I can deal with Monday…

7 comments:

Colleen said...

I love how you describe your favorite parts of quilting. I agree and have the same feeling!
Your weekend doesn't seem boring at all!

Carol said...

What a wonderful description of your favorite parts of quilting...you truly love the process! Sounds like you had a perfect weekend!

KC Quilter said...

Sounds peaceful and relaxing!

Libby said...

I'm like you - I like 'em finished up *s* Stitching down the binding is my favorite part of the making but there is just nothing like pulling a finished quilt fresh from the dryer all warm and crinkly *ahhhhh*

Greenmare said...

perfect weekend! and I love your favorite parts of quilting too!

Elaine/Muddling Through said...

Your quilting looks pretty great to me! And I like just about every part of qulting, except whatever part it is that I'm tired of at the moment. :) But, yes, the best part is finished. And finished and where it belongs is best of all. But then you have to start another one. LOL

deb said...

Sounds like a perfectly lovely weekend!!!!
I like putting them on the table too...the best part...but Im such a newbie that I need to learn a lot more if Im to continue quilting, which is really up in the air right now...lol...