i got me the quilting bug

it's in my skin. stuck fast like an imaginary tick. shall we call it a quick? (quilt + tick. get it?) well, this quick makes me impatient. yet another meaning! when i get a project going, by golly, i want it done. fast and quick-like. :) (i really love my made up word. ha!) they say quilting is supposed to be a slow process. a slow, magical art form. i simply don't have the patience. i like seeing the fruits of my labors not in a year, but tomorrow. and with quilting i may have met my match. all-nighters won't get a quilt done. it's horrible. it's killing me. i'm like a quilting version of Veruca Salt: "don't care how, i want it NOW!"

this all began in Livingston, Tennessee. say it with me. not LivinGstOn. but Livin'stEn. and it was at Charlotte's house (a fellow young women's leader.) she fed me homemade soup and rolls and gushed over jake like he was another one of her grandbabies (which are all girls.) on the couch lay her quilting hoop and a beautiful quilt. i asked about it. she showed me many of the quilts she'd made.

"And this one I've been working on for about 7 years," she said. i about died. she must be the Mother Teresa of patience. i simply don't understand it. it horrified and fascinated me all at once. she is a marvel.

and so she is to blame (lovingly, of course) for this "quick" of mine. i had decided to make a quilt for Jake for Easter. i had visions of grandeur in my head as i walked into the quilt shop and asked the dear, sweet owner to help me match some fabrics to a picture i had found online.

"do you have a pattern for this quilt?" she asked looking at me hard behind her spectacles. (i want glasses.)

"no......?"

"oh honey," she said. crap. "you'd be setting yourself up for failure."

"...."

i didn't say anything to that because half of me was devastated i couldn't make this quilt i loved and the other half of me was totally offended! she doesn't know the mad skills i have! (and by skills, i mean i'm a total beginner. i have no clue what i'm doing. but if impatience was a skill i would be unbelievable.)

so she steered this doe-eyed quilt dreamer towards the quilt patterns and showed me the ones that would help me "succeed" at quilting. i hated them. she may as well have just said, "you're too little to go on the big ride. why don't you go sit on the see-saw." i hate being told what to do and that i can't do something. i hate that.

but as she talked and showed me a sample quilt made from one of the "i'm a baby quilter" patterns, i began to lighten up and realize-- dang it-- she was probably right. so with a pattern, some fabrics and a harsh dose of reality i left the shop.

and i finished the quilt by Easter. and nestled it by his basket. and i am pretty pleased. first quilt ever, and i think i did a pretty darn good job. it took me about a month. from the ironing to the measuring to the re-measuring to the cutting to the piecing to the sewing to the ironing to the re-ironing since jake would crawl all over it, to the pinning, more cutting, more sewing, more measuring, and a heapful of impatience and quilting mental madness where i wouldn't eat for hours and my hands would start to shake (very reminiscent of finals time at BYU-Idaho)........ sigh........breath......i finished. and may or may not have brought it to church to show it to Charlotte.

they were right. it is a PROCESS. and i think it's supposed to be slow to ward off the hysterics and mental breakdowns. you live and learn. but i love the quilt. i love that i made it for my Jake. and maybe he'll carry it with him wherever he goes. maybe he'll take it with him on his mission and to college. maybe he'll wrap his own babies in it and my posterity will hug it and say, "great-great grandmother Cristine made this. isn't it precious."

ha. hopefully. maybe. it's a dream. but for some reason i'm thinking Jake will not want a baby quilt on his dorm room bed when he's 19 years old. go figure right? whatever, i'm totally stuffing that quilt in his suitcase.

and maybe he'll get the "quick" too. my little Jake a quilter. ha. wow. someone quick, get my kid a basketball.