Meet the Quilter

I did not start out a quilter.  I started out a home school mom, teaching my three boys, reading good books, and hanging out on home school websites.  On one of those websites, I got to know a sweet lady who became a very dear friend.  She quilts. Like, big time. Like, President of her Quilt Guild quilts. Which I thought was neat, but not something I would ever do.

me, August 2012, having my very first lesson on my very first ever sewing machine,
a Janome Magnolia 7318

Until one day, she needed a few extra blocks made to finish out her President's Quilt. And being the dear friend I am, I volunteered to make one for her. How hard could it be??? (it was hard. I had NO IDEA what I was doing).

She laughed, a LOT, as I worked my way through that. You can read all of that on the posts titled Labor of Love, which is a hilarious chronicle of how I learned what on earth to do with a needle. I didn't own a machine yet at that time.....it was fantastic. And it wasn't that long ago; go read it and then come back, I'll wait. You'll laugh. Especially at the beginning posts.

Labor of Love: The Quilt Block that Started it All

Did you read it? And laugh?  It's okay, I laugh still when I think back to those days. I have come a little ways since then.  Now I even design my own quilts, and you'll see some of those on the blog.

Once I had finished the quilt block for my friend, I began chatting with an aunt who quilts; she and my cousin were making a Diary Quilt for my cousin's daughter. That idea really appealed to me, a reader, story teller, scrapbooker who had now learned to sew (sort of). So in 2010 I bought the book A Quilter's Diary by Mimi Dietrich, and I bought a jelly roll and a pattern (Mosaic Star) to make my first quilt.

I started with a jelly roll because I had no supplies whatsoever and thought that at least if all my pieces were already the right width, cutting would be easier and I could get by without buying a new mat and could use a smaller ruler (easier on the budget). That purchase turned into the Texas Star quilt, also known around here as Red White & Blue. That quilt was finished in December 2011, just two years after the fiasco that was the labor of love.

When I would get bored of working with red, white & blue, I would work on blocks for the Diary Quilt. From those projects, I sort of jumped right into the world of designing my own, the first of which was the Argyle Baby Quilt, which I'm shown working on below. From there, I designed and completed a quilt for each of my three boys, as well as for my husband, and I have several other ideas floating around. I quilt as the whim strikes, thus the title of the blog. The ideas are often more plentiful than time to work on them, but I do my best.

me, quilting the argyle baby quilt, first thing I ever quilted by machine
September 2012 (this was putting the binding on)

I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, but I'm grateful for the place to talk about it anyway. Thanks so much for stopping by!