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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

What Quilting means to me

This statement was the subject of recent discussion on my Internet Quilting group, Southern Cross Quilters, or SCQ for short. So it made me think, what does quilting personally mean to me? Guess my answers are much the same as everyone else.

Quilting means creativity, and I have grown from doing everything exactly as the pattern says, to making my own choices and taking a few risks along the way. It means fabric and threads, cutting out, stitching, pressing, all the steps up to the binding and the label.

Quilting means books, magazines, and a whole pile of patterns that I want to try. It means UFOs and ideas for even more.

Quilting means fun, joining my quilt club, my friendship group, taking part in swaps, meeting like minded people.

Quilting means the Internet, joining in groups such as Southern Cross Quilters, Quilting Down Under, and Kiwi Quilters, and reading what everyone is getting up to. The Healing Hearts blocks and lovely messages I received from SCQ three years ago while undergoing chemo and radiation treatments gave me such a lot of comfort at that difficult time. I still haven’t put it together yet, but the blocks and messages are all there, waiting till I’m ready.

Quilting means overseas friends. Through quilting I have several overseas pen friends and have been lucky enough to meet up with most of them. Blogging is another way to link up with quilters, and I am looking forward to catching up with a fellow blogger from UK within a few days.

Quilting means “Never say Never”. When I first started I decided that I only liked pieced blocks and would not do appliqué – that changed. I didn’t like hand work much – now I love doing stitcheries. Will I ever do crazy patch or hexagons? I haven’t yet, but who knows.

Quilting is good for my soul, for my self esteem, for the satisfaction I get when I complete something, for the warm fuzzies when you give an item away that is truly appreciated. When my grand-daughters said “Thanks Nana, that’s cool”.

So it is fair to say that quilting (that includes patchwork too of course) is a big part of my life, and that’s just the way I like it.

DSCF2404 Muffy loves quilts too

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3 comments:

PatchworkQuilting said...

"Quilting means books, magazines, and a whole pile of patterns that I want to try. It means UFOs and ideas for even more."

Thanks for writing this.. for putting into words what most of us won't admit! LOL

How many books, magazine, and patterns do all of us own? Probably a forest worth!

I haven't thought of the UFO term in a long time... I guess I got over the fact that sometimes I just never finish a project if it loses my interest... notice I didn't say that I lost interest... we are ever evolving, and sometimes we learned enough from a project to put it aside, lesson learned...

Thanks for reminding me, and us, of that!

MaggieB
http://www.patchworkquilting.net/

Derek and Dot said...

You've forgotten one important thing, helping non quilters how to quilt. Very important. Hope to see you soon volcanoes permitting.

Jenny said...

Yes, that's right, and you were a very able beginner quilter, Dot. Now we just need to get you started on your second quilt.