First post

It's a new year, why not try a new thing.  I meant to start yesterday, but I had some projects I was working on and we ended up having a card party.  Oh Well, January 2nd is a good day to start too.

On to the meat of it.  I intend to use this space to journal my progress as I work on my various crafts.  My current obsession is quilting, but I dabble in jewelry making, knitting, machine embroidery, needlepoint and scrapbooking.

I've been crafting all my life, for a while I thought I'd like to be an artist, but then I realized I wasn't good enough to make a living at it.  If you ever see my handwriting, you'll know what I mean, fine motor skills aren't so good.  My crafting fulfills something inside of me, I can judge my moods by how creative I feel.

We moved to Iowa a year ago to be close to my husband's family.  We had been living in sunny California, where houses are small and expensive.  All my crafts had to fit into a nook in the office.  Plus it was warm, so there wasn't much need for quilts or scarves or sweaters.  Since moving to Iowa, we've discovered how nice it is to have a cozy quilt to cuddle under and warm hat to cover your head while you shovel snow.  Not to mention, now I have a finished basement where I can lay things out and not have to look at the mess if I don't want to.

As I mentioned, my current obsession is quilting.  I had made a few quilts with my mother in high school and college.  My mother worked in the costume department in college, so she knows quite a bit about sewing generally.  Our first quilt was a pink, green, blue and purple log cabin for my new bed, then we made a rainbow texas star for my cousin who was starting college (I still shudder when I think of the mountain in the middle), then came a celestial boston common for my college dorm room, a couple of lap quilts for friends and finally a quilt for my apartment in NYC.  These were all tied quilts, and frankly I still like a tied quilt for softness and cuddliness.

As the weather got cold at the beginning of our first year in Iowa, I began to look for blankets for our living room.  Leather furniture may be practical with two small children and two small dogs, but it is cold in the winter.  I couldn't find anything I liked for a price I was willing to pay.  (We have a rather modern aesthetic and small creatures who are hard on fabrics.)  I noticed how we kept fighting over the little lap quilt I had made in college, and resolved to make a quilt, that would match our decor.  After many trips to the local fabric store, I had my pattern from the book Happy Hour, by Terry Atkinson, my fabric and the tools of the trade.  My sister in law gave me a sewing machine that her mother in law had given her.  This is what I made.

You can see how nicely it goes with the carpet in the living room.  After this I was off and running, but I'll get to that soon.

In the next few posts, I intend to talk about my creative process, post pictures of the crafts of 2010, and lay out my plan for 2011.  I already have a few months worth of projects in mind.