October 2004 Quilt

Today I had grand plans to show you one or two of the quilts on the rack in the lounge room. Best laid plans have gone to waste however, as I discovered that DH has taken the camera with him on his mini break to the sheep-station.

Armed only with my camera-phone, I'm showing you what I worked on yesterday. The quality of the pictures I get with the camera phone aren't that good so I'll save the quilt rack items until next week.

On my list of goals for this month is to start hand quilting the October 2004 Thimbleberries Club quilt. Yesterday morning I was able to baste the quilt, but while I was doing that, I discovered that I'd managed to ripple the top and bottom border a little. :-(

Because of the ripple, I decided I'd machine quilt the border with a loopy meander to hopefully take in the ripple a bit, and I think it has come out okay. The quilt looks a little lumpy on the floor, as I just had to rescue the quilt off the lounge from under Amy's tushie! I couldn't just set to quilting the border without doing anything else, so before I started on the border, I quilted in the ditch around the inner borders and the inner part of the quilt. I also bound it yesterday.

Now I plan to hand quilt some cute details in the middle part of the quilt using the same black perle cotton that I used to blanket stitch around the pumpkins. It should like kind of cute. Darn the quilt looks really wrinkly in this picture. I hope the quilting makes it look a little better!

Yesterday Patti was curious to know about the reasons why people quilt. It's a really good (and fascinating) question.

I had to think about it for a little, and I can only say that in the beginning I was just drawn to it. I actually went to a pumpkin bag workshop with my Mum when I was first married and when I saw the quilts on the wall at the store, I just knew it was something I had to do.

Quilting satisfies a creative drive in me, and I love that it's an a pastime where you have something tangible at the end of it, something beautiful, and something warming. Patti talked about the fellowship, and that is so important too. I have made some of the most important friends in my life through quilting. I can't imagine where I would be in my life right now if I hadn't started quilting. I don't even want to imagine it!

Have a great weekend!