Quilting

About two years ago I decided it'd be fun to learn how to quilt. Mr. J surprised me and went out and bought all the stuff the lady at the store said I would need to get started. I'm not an overly patient person nor do I like following patterns (or recipes for that matter). So I went ahead and tried my own adaptation and it turned out horrible. My "quilt" quickly became a couch pillow.

Fast forward to last summer, my mom introduces me to this older lady in he 70's who used to know my mom when she was just a little girl. Her ID might say she's 70-something but her personality and energy says she's early 60's same with her husband. Anyways, the past several months she's been asking if I could help teach her some things about computers, facebook, email, etc. Every now and then I get a call to come fix something because of a virus or she hit a button and she doesn't know what happened. Over the course of several computer sessions it comes out of my failed quilt attempt. Well wouldn't know now it... she's a professional quilter. Has all the machines and know-how. She makes quilts as  a living for people. And they are so beautiful! So she offers in exchange for all the computer work, to teach me how to quilt.

My mother-in law gave me some beautiful fabric once when I commented on how much I loved it. So I showed my newly acquired quilting friend M  and off she went to find some matching ones in her rooms full of fabric. She was determined I was going to learn. So for weeks I worked at it, she'd call every couple days to see if how it was going and if I needed help. And last week I finally finished! The colors aren't perhaps exactly my choice. But the quilt tuned out pretty good. The fabric I got from my MIL is the black one with colorful butterflies on it,

 

It's also the same color I used for the binding. Poor Mr. J! I had him hold the fabric up so I could take some pictures of it, and the quilt is heavier than it looks!

 

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I participated in a facebook thing where you post a status about paying it forward with homemade things... I'll write more about it once I get working on the projects... anyways for it I want to make rag-time quilts. I've never done this before so M gave me some fabric to practice on so I figured why not use it to make a baby blanket. (no I am not pregnant! But it sure got people thinking that around here!)

 

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This back heart fabric is also some that my MIL gave me.

 

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So not too bad after my first two attempts at "real" quilting! Now perhaps I should get started on those other projects I have in mind!