Don't Wanna Be No Crafty Girl.

I started quilting in October 2002. You'd think what with all the crafty women in my family and my magpie-like love of bright fabrics, I'd have started sooner than that. Oh, my mother tried to get me interested when I was a wee kidlet and then again as a surly teen, but I was such a little snot about it. Quilting was so girlie, you know. And old-fashioned. Blue-haired old ladies who'd never read Naomi Wolf and liked to watch Oprah quilted. I'd sooner have poked my eyes out.

But. I was a (mostly) good daughter and I loved my mom, so I went with her to all the local quilt shows and shops even though I insisted I had no real interest in any of it. And that was my downfall. At shows, surrounded by all those gorgeous quilts and super friendly (you think car salesman are bad? try getting cornered by a woman with too many batiks on her hands!) vendors, I'd find myself buying fat quarters of this and that. I'd bring the fabric home and think "I'll do something with that, someday" and then forget about them.

One day, after I'd been to more shows than I have toes or fingers to count on, I started looking at quilts differently. Sure, they were still beautiful pieces of art, but I began to see how they could be broken down into parts and I began to think it didn't look too hard. Or so terribly girlie.

I was afraid of the sewing machine and the rotary cutter for a while (heard too many horror stories), but time and practice helped me become more comfortable with them and now I no longer worry (much) about slicing my finger tips off or sewing them together.

I find quilting to be very comforting. Oh, there are days when everything goes wrong -- all the strips are miscut or I'm short fabric or I've stitched things together upside down or the goddamn bobbin keeps jamming --- but those days don't bother me too much. They're only quilts. It's not as if I'm doing rocket science or brain surgery. I can come back and try again tomorrow or throw the whole thing in the closet. It's okay.

Cracktastic.

Currently, I tend to stick to traditional quilt patterns or quilting styles. Although I've been quilting pretty steadily since 2002, I still see myself as a total quilting n00b and am unwilling to risk striking out on my own. I like following directions and I don't really like having to do the math myself, anyway.

However, despite my use of traditional patterns, I really like bright colors and so tend to use a lot of batiks and those crazy Laurel Burch cat prints. This, I fear, lends some of my quilts a schizophrenic air. My mother says they are "interesting" ...