Monday, November 19, 2012

Things That Started Innocently Enough

I'm still not clear on how I survived those forty weeks known as pregnancy, but I am quite sure that I was out of mind. Maybe it was the 9 months of nausea. Maybe it was the hormones. But for whatever reason, I got it in my head that I was GOING.TO.MAKE.A.BABY.QUILT.DAMMIT.

Now, understand that I had never done such a thing. Sure, I had sewn a few beanbags in a middle school Home Economics class. I even had a sewing machine that I'd gotten as a Christmas present years earlier. But a quilt? If I'd been in my right mind I  *never* would have undertaken such a thing. But, never one to give in to reason, I sat in a crappy Ikea chair for hours toiling over 12 log cabin blocks. And then I gave birth.

Fast forward 9 months... Now sleeping a whopping four hours a night I picked up the quilt top, determined to finish what I started. You know, before Baby Bee realized how bad my time management skills were).

I took a deep breath and successfully navigated some very elementary quilting. Satisfied with the quilting, I ventured out on to the internet for a binding tutorial. And that's when "it" happened. That's right, I stumbled onto Amanda Nyberg's (@crazymomquilts.com) binding tutorial. I can still remember that moment of 1) shock and awe at the beauty of modern quilts and 2) the horror at the now nearly finished traditionally-styled baby quilt that I held in my hands. I pretty much hated my first quilt before it was even finished. Um, oops?

What I did next was only logical. I quickly finished the binding and sped off to my LQS. Two days and a few charm packs of Aneela Hooey's "Walk in the Woods" later, I was well on my way to redemption with my "First Quilt, Take II".  Did I mention that I was only sleeping four hours a night? Yeah, I was clearly insane.

As I said, I pretty much hated my first quilt before it was even done. So much so that I don't really want to post a picture of it, but maybe I'll be able to look back at this someday and laugh. But, in case this never becomes funny, there is also a snapshot of my second (redemption) quilt, too.
Traditional blue/brown Beatrix Potter vs.
Redemption Quilt in progress




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