Anyone that knows me knows I have a passion for quilting.  It’s quite evident from the moment you walk into my house.  I think the small mountain of quilts piled high on the corner quilt rack instantly tells volumes about me.  Carefully tucked away behind the kitchen table are bolts of fabric just waiting for that perfect quilt to be made.  It is commonplace to find my sewing room floor littered with scraps of fabric.  The dogs have gotten used to it.  Even my dear sweet husband doesn’t say a word about them.  You’ll find an unfinished quilt top hanging from my living room curtains.  Someday I’ll decide just what I’m going to do with it, but in the meantime, I’m quite content to leave that scrappy nine-patch quilt top just where it hangs.  My friends have all grown accustomed to my quirky quilty habits.  Truth be known, most of them are quilters as well, so it is really no big surprise to them to see five different quilts all in different stages of completion tucked around in the corners of my house.  You just never know when the perfect mood will strike me to actually finish a project.    

What you may not know exists within me is also my love for vintage fabrics.  A perfect day for me is finding a fabric-filled trunk at an auction or a garage sale.  Call me hopelessly old fashioned if you will, but I think there is just something very special and very magical about an old trunk filled with vintage fabric.   Let my iron get warm and I’m in seventh heaven for an hour as I carefully take each little bundle apart and press each piece of fabric flat.  

I’ve discovered you can learn a great deal about a person just by pressing their scraps.  You can learn what colors were their favorites to work with.  Finding various soft pink fabrics with small prints tells me they were blessed with little girl in their household.   Bolder prints in shades of blue tell me their home was filled with the boisterous sounds of little boys.  I’ve come to call my encounters with these special finds my fabric journeys.  I’ve found many an apron in various stages of completion.  Usually, without fail, I will find pieces of a quilt started years ago, and put lovingly away for completion on another day.  I find comfort in knowing that I am no different than the quilters of yesteryear.  Someday someone will do exactly as I have done.  They’ll go through my scraps and wonder about me.  As I press each piece, I can’t help but wonder how and why it came to be put away and stored.   Perhaps the fabric scraps found their way to the box because the quilter didn’t have time to finish all the quilts she had already created in her mind, or maybe it was just life getting in the way.  Sometimes we just don’t have the time or the energy it takes to finish a quilt.  

I’m hopelessly addicted to these vintage fabrics.  The allure of these hidden treasures just waiting to be discovered is just something I can’t let slip out of my hands.  Like many quilters, as I press my fabrics, I sort them.  There’s a box for solids, a box for directionals, a box for florals, and my favorite box of all, my box of vintage fabrics.  Even the least appealing scrap of fabric gets tucked away.  

The other day, the old familiar feeling of just sitting down and quilting just wouldn’t go away.  If you are a quilter, you know the feeling I’m talking about.  It’s that nagging little voice that torments you until you sit down, plug in the iron, and turn on your sewing machine.  That’s the easy part.  Actually deciding what you are going to do is the hard part.  On this particular day, I pulled out my vintage fabrics.  My decision was to sit and create a quilt for me, something I rarely do.  I decided to make a quilt in anticipation of the long winter ahead.  The quilt would be just for me for the times I sit curled up by the fireplace with a good book or an old Gary Cooper movie.  

Working with all fabric scraps, the final pattern choice was a traditional scrappy Pioneer Braid quilt.  One by one the quilt rows were put together.  I alternated using light prints on one side and dark prints on the other.  A couple of nights later the center quilt panel was complete.  I added simple borders and prepared the top for quilting.  I’m not a hand quilter by nature.  I have great admiration for those that do, but I’ve got too many quilts running around my mind that I want to finish.  I’m sure you know the saying, “So many quilts.  So little time.”  I chose a simple small floral print for the back and decided on cotton batting.   My longarm machine and I made short work of my latest quilt creation.  A couple of nights later, I put the final few binding stitches in my quilt, tossed it in the washer, and waited patiently.  What I really wanted to see was the quilt as it came out of the dryer.  My quilt did not let me down.  It has the crinkled look to it that I like.  It looks old, feels soft and cuddly and is just the perfect quilt for me!   It is "My Quilt."  


Click here to see  My Quilt.