lessons from quilting

I've begun quilting in the past couple years. For my birthday a few years ago, my sister and brother-in-law, Randy and Cole, gave me my first sewing machine. I'd only used one once in 4th grade when my neighbor lady made a beach towel with me. So I've been learning as I go and really enjoying it.

This is my 3rd quilt, made for Tana. I bought a baby quilt pattern book, but got annoyed/overwhelmed by the numbers in the instructions, so I decided to just try to make some crazy quilt squares with fabric scraps I already had. So I just worked with my scissors and iron at my side... cutting pieces in random shapes, ironing them flat and then piecing them together like a puzzle. I realized that it didn't matter what shape the pieces were, as long as they were big enough for me to cut them down to a 9x9 square. I got caught in the middle of a couple squares, because I realized I haven't learned how to sew together curved pieces yet! So on this quilt there are a couple fabric pieces on top of the quilt with exposed edges. I know they'll eventually have frayed edges, but it is a quilt for a baby! Don't they need different textures and images to explore? That is my excuse. Someday Tana and I will laugh together about how she recieved the quilt with the frayed edges at the beginning of my sewing career.

I find that there is something really comforting and exciting about quilting. It forces me to work on some of personality's weaknesses. I have to think ahead a bit more than usual. I have to use math (which I detest). I have to slow down and learn to be detail oriented. My thought is that my quilts will likely increase in quality and creativity as I pay more and more attention to these tendencies that I have. Later on down the road, if I am to become a confident quilter, it will likely not be due so much to more time spent quilting, but more thought and energy put into slowing down and looking closely at every detail.