Thing

This week's word was "thing" or "things," however we want to interpret it. This is a thing I did over the weekend, inspired by an article on hand lettering I read. I thought I would try my hand at doing it. It isn't perfect but it's okay.

Things to try are always in my head. Today I tried a thing that has been in my head for at least ten years. I've joked over the years that I wanted to buy a machine quilting machine and quilt quilts. It's kind of been a joke because a) those things are expensive, b) I used to sew and quilt and have not done so for years, d) this would be starting a small business and I'm scared, c) well, I don't know. But today I did realize that when thinking about this thing, I have trouble differentiating between good sense and fear, so I don't know what I might actually do over a period of time about this particular endeavor. Maybe nothing.

Anyway, my aunt told me about a quilt shop that would give lessons on how to use the (in this case, $15,000) machine and would rent it to you to quilt your quilts. I went by for a visit a couple of weeks ago and I scheduled a lesson for today. So now today, part of my itch has been scratched. I sort of know how to use the machine. I did not tear it up. I did not stitch a finger (in spite of me having to adapt a tiny bit for being left handed). I did not do it perfectly. She did not say I was a genius quilter, but she did say I did well and listened carefully (but of course!).

I can't say I exactly loved it. But I can see where one could get into a flow and enjoy doing the work. And I am going to go back again and rent some more time on the machine for practice and play. I have at least three quilts top that I could finish. I have a couple of sets of blocks I could work on to make more tops. I have no lack of things to finish if I decided I wanted to do this.

See my photos below. It is not stellar work but I'm quite proud of it nonetheless (it is done on "practice" fabric with muslin for a backing, not a quilt top!).

 I did this flower at the end of the day when I was practicing and getting more of a feel for the machine (my biggest problem was that I needed to relax and let the machine do the work).

 And she showed me how to do a little heart, then move on to circles. It's hard to think about where you need to go on the quilt top and not to let yourself get boxed in. I must practice that more.

 This was done with some sort of thing called a work station. You traced around the pattern with a stylus from the back of the machine.