You know you're a quilter when...

This is taken from a thread that an online acquaintance started on www.quiltingboard.com. It's compiled from the contributions of a lot of the quilters there. If you distribute, please mention quiltingboard.com as the source. I know more than a few apply to me, how about you?


You know you're a quilter when...
1. You pay more attention to the quilts in the movie than what the actors are saying.
2. Meals are an interruption
3. you see a nice shirt, skirt or dress, you mentally go through your stash to see if you have coordinating fabric and figure out what block the garment would look best in.
4. you rewind or pause a movie to get a better look at the quilt in the background.
5. you stop driving or walking to dig out a camera, cell phone, or paper and pen to capture an image of something for a new quilt idea.
6. You wish quilters got credit in films like actors and tech staff do.
7. you go to bed, you think about what you want to sew in the morning instead of what you plan to make for breakfast.
8. you trace a design in a hospital waiting room.
9. you look at the tile design on the floor and figure out how to piece it in fabric.
10. You pick threads off your clothes every time you walk out the door.
11. You pick threads off your spouse, the dogs, the cat...
12. You see quilt designs everywhere.
13. You dream about quilts
14. You are districated by the carpet pattern underneath the buffet table.
15. You color your small square window panes in a nice 9-patch design
16. You plan your vacations around the locations of fabric stores.
17. You realize the fabric you are sitting on at the fast food joint would make a great quilt.
18. You copy tile patterns from hotels, churches, old government buildings...
19. Nobody eats in the dining room because your "project" is taking up the entire table.
20. You buy antique quilt at the swap meet even though it has too many holes.
21. Your dog has a coat made from an antique quilt.
22. You are covered with threads all the time.
23. you can't just sit and watch TV; you have to be sewing or quilting at the same time.
24. Your car is trained to turn in to every fabric store parking lot it passes.
25. You come home to find a purple bin filled with fabrics at your door that "a friend" bought at a garage sale and knew you would like it.
26. A neighbor says he likes the humming sound of your sewing machine late at night.
27. Your friends' clothes remind you of quilt blocks
28. you can't leave home without your sewing machine
29. You are thrilled to find a shirt, skirt or dress at the thrift shop that will work great in your next project.
30. A friend hands you a giant bag of her husband's old silk ties.
31. you go to a well-stocked quilt store and you can't find any accessories that you do NOT have
32. You miss your sewing machine more than your family
33. you disappear for the weekend into your sewing room
34. You save greeting cards and pictures from magazines for a future quilt design
35. you look for fabric that's based on ancient tile designs
36. you lay out floor and wall tiles based on a quilt pattern.
37. you are attracted to a man's tie because the fabric would look great in a quilt.
38. you tell your kids/spouse "Just one more row!" 
39. you tell your family "whoever finds thread in their food wins a prize" at dinner time.
40. you find the stair railing in the courthouse has a very interesting pattern
41. you cut up carpet tile squares into triangles for the floor.
42. you bore your non-quilting friends with endless talk about quilting
43. you run out of storage space for fabric and unfinished projects.
44. you would rather spend money on fabric than new shoes or clothes.
45. you are directionally challenged, yet you can find quilt stores that are hidden in the woods
44. you quit volunteering at church because they threw away some antique quilts.
45. you sit down at your sewing machine at 7PM and before you know it, your neighbor is banging on the wall at 11:30PM and he wants to sleep.
46. your vacation consists of attending quilt shows and fabric shopping.
47. You decorate pies and cakes to look like quilts.
48. you go on vacation, you bring a list of all the quilt stores within driving distance of your destination.
49. you hear that someone sewed through their finger and your first thought is "That's awful! Another broken needle!"
50. You prepare to paint your barn or garage by looking at quilt block patterns.
51. your automatic response to any request from any family member is "just let me finish this one seam"
52. you observe that the quilting in the toilet paper could have been done better.
53. you wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if you can sneak out to the quilting room.
54. your husband automatically turns the car around because you spotted a quilt shop on a side road
55. you meet another quilter for the first time and chat for an hour before either of you realize it
56  you seriously consider stealing your best friend's shirt because it's just the right color.
57. when your granddaughter brings the picture she drew in art class home from school and you want to turn it into a quilt.
58. you wake up earlier when you're on vacation than when you're working so you can have more quilting time
59. you get into the car and you realize you are still wearing a thimble.
60. you try to surprise your kids with a "fun new place to visit" and they reply "let me guess - a quilt shop?"
61. you take your sewing machine on a 10-day road trip.
62. you want to re-create the stained-glass window from church as a quilt.
63. The first place you visit in the library is the new display quilt.
64. you envision all the horses in the pasture wearing quilted blankets.
65. you make the dog wait to go out so you can finish a seam.
66. you ask to trace cardboard butterflies hanging in a florist's window.
67. your machine is out for its annual tune-up and you clean your house for "something to do"
68  you don't iron clothing, but you do iron scraps of fabric
69. you delay surgery to attend the state quilt convention
70  you "borrow" a napkin from a fancy restaurant so you can make a quilt designed like it.
71. you can't stay out of fabric stores, even though you already own enough fabric for a lifetime.
72. you redesign your kitchen to include an island large enough to baste a queen-size quilt.
73. you start sewing at 2AM because you have a lot of blocks to finish.
74. you don't remember the names of the towns you visited, but you do remember how to get to the local Quilt Store in that town.
75. you can measure a block from a computer image.
76. you can't stand the heat, but will sew in an unairconditioned room for hours, sweat rolling down your face.
77. you are in an airplane looking out the window and see many many quilt patterns on the ground.
78. your children/grandchildren refuse to go out with you when they find out you are only going to a fabric shop.
79. the ONLY shopping you like to do is for fabric.
80. you must stop at the fabric store before going to the grocery store (when you are out grocery shopping)
81. you practice quilting feathers and other designs with the lawn mower.
82. you are trying to figure out how to reproduce the light and shadow on the ceiling tiles in a quilt while laying back in a dentist's chair.
83. your spouse is trained to call you to the computer when he sees a quilt in a house listing photo.
84. you impress people with your ability to know the dimensions of something without a ruler.
85. someone says "what nice points", you take it as a compliment.
86. you offer to take your neighbor's donation box to the drop off so you can root through it for clothing that would make a nice addition to your stash.
87. you photohgraph brickwork for a future quilt design.
88. you select gift wrap because the pattern would look good in a quilt.
89. you cut a nice looking tie off someone's neck to use in a project.
90. you recognize yourself in this list.

Daddy's Little Princess

You may wonder why this quilt would be named Daddy's Little Princess. There is significant back story to this name, but suffice to say it refers to a (former) gamer dad and his new little lady. I hope they like it! (Ok, I know they'll like it)

The front is piece from quilting cottons in a very basic 4-patch variation, and the back is soft cuddly flannel. Since the family lives in MA, the little princess will need a warm quilt to cover her in the car seat this winter. As with all my baby quilts, this one has a machine stitched binding and is fairly densely quilted with a meandering pattern.

Ho Boy!

I have never run a quilt show/contest before, but I guess there's a first time for everything! I'm a member of the International Costumers Guild, in the SiliconWeb and Southwest Costumers Guild chapters. Each year there is a convention hosted by a different chapter in a different part of the country, and in 2012 it will be coming to Phoenix, hosted by the SW Costumers Guild. Since there are many of the costumers who are also quilters (among other fiber arts), recently a quilt show has been added to the festivities taking place, and silly me volunteered to run it for our con.

Now I just have to figure out how to advertise it best, so that we get some good entries! This is a start at least.

Slow progress

But progress just the same!

So, the little man was born on May 11th, and he's absolutely adorable!

 One proud big sister!

Now that he's almost 3 weeks old (Really? Already??), I'm slowly getting back to my sewing. And re-arranging my workroom (I'm temporarily giving up on having any sort of flooring installed, so it will remain bare concrete for the time being).

I need to figure out how to fit everything in an 11x12 room with a truncated corner. And I have a lot of fabric. And books (and other reference materials). And other stuff. A trip to Ikea is in the near future- the Gorm shelves are the right dimensions to fit in, around & under various objects in the room, including the quilt frame that is still in the baby's room, so that's what I'll be going with. It's an awkward process- I need to unpack boxes in order to get everything in the room, but I need shelves & other things in place in order to unpack the boxes. Wheee!

I've gotten one commissioned quilt top completed, and started the second, plus I have 5 other tops completed- one is the baby's, one is a gift, the other 3 are going into my Etsy shop (eventually). I haven't been up for wrestling with the roll of batting just yet, but I need to do that soon.

New England Waterways (name is also a WIP) teaser

Charlotte's Web teaser 

I also have a 3rd commission that I started picking up fabric for yesterday, as well as at least 5 other tops cut & waiting to be pieced (some of them have been waiting more than 4 or 5 years at this point...) What, me? WIPs & UFOs? I have no idea what you might be referring to! =)

Thanks for sticking around, hopefully I'll be able to post a bit more frequently now. Or at least, I'll have more items to post about!

Long day...

Until today, all of my quilts that I have made as a gift have been for happy occasions, mostly births of babies, a few birthdays, and a retirement.

Today, my husband told me one of his coworkers may lose his newborn son. I've never made a bereavement quilt before this, and I really, truly hope this doesn't become one, but sadly the chances of the baby surviving are extraordinarily slim. I hope this at least brings mom & dad some comfort.

I am so thankful that everything is indicating that our son will be a healthy baby.