Monday, August 6, 2012

Red Raspberry - In the beginning...

...there was a girl who liked to sew.

Somehow, despite being a home economics failure ( she got a C) she discovered her sewjo.  Her first handmade outfit was a made from a lovely (hideous) mauve crushed satin kind of fabric, accessorised with a matching purple bow of gigantic proportions.  It was the late 80's after all!  How she loved that dress.  But now there was no stopping her.  An addiction was born.  Glorious batwing tops, bubble skirts, peplums and multiple zipper numbers all in varying shades of polyester, crushed velvet and lace.

Somewhere along the way she lost her sewjo and discovered new and exciting crafts that took her fancy for a short while until she inevitably became bored and moved on to something else.  Then came that day when she spied a gorgeous creation on a magazine cover!  That magazine was Australian Homespun with one of Kellie Wulfsohn's quilts on the cover.  'That's a quilt?' she thinks.  'But quilting isn't fun, is it?'  She buys the magazine.  Does she make the quilt?  No.  She buys more magazines to drool over.  She buys fabric.  She hoards fabric.  Does she make anything??  No.  

One day while flicking through her new favourite magazine she reads about a competion - Search for a Craft Star.  'Wow.  That might be fun to enter.  I might make a quilt.'  says the crazy person who has never in her life made a quilt.  Then she thinks maybe I should start with something small, a tablerunner perhaps?  No, it definitely has to be a quilt.  It can't be that hard can it?  

So she comes up with a design.  She feels that first flush of excitement of beginning a new and exciting project so the making of the quilt top goes quite quickly.  Her sewjo is back.

Close-up of Kokeshi Doll Applique

Then she starts to procrastinate as she realizes the enormity of the project that she has begun.  More procrastination and everyday life with two small children gets in the way of all creativity.  Then the sudden realization that ( oh crap! ) there is only 3 weeks to go until she needs to send off photos of her finished project.  
Doubt sets in.  What was she thinking?  She should just forget about it.... 'No.  I am going to finish this.' she says and she did.  She learnt free motion quilting and with a great deal of swearing and weeping, she quilted her quilt.  She finishes with a few days to spare and posts off her photos.

Anyway to cut a long story short, my quilt won the amatuer category.  I did receive a wonderful prize ( thank you Pfaff! ) but the best and most exciting part of the whole endeavour was seeing my quilt pattern as a project in my favourite magazine - Australian Homespun.  I loved designing and making the quilt and hope to design many more.

Kokeshi Doll Quilt

My goals in starting this blog:

1.  To keep the ideas flowing and the momentum going.

2.  To participate in the online craft community instead of just being a reader of other blogs.

3.  To stop procrastinating and try to finish projects in a reasonable time frame ( this will be a hard one!)

4.  To share my projects with you. 

Cheers

Gill

P.S.  Please look out for my next quilt in the October 2012 issue of Australian Homespun.