4 posts tagged “what i make”
There was but one egg left over after all the birthday caking (from a dozen, I don't want to think about it, thank you). And I wanted to make scones. But what self-respecting scone recipe takes more than one egg? This one sure doesn't! I didn't listen and went diving straight into the strawberries. I kneaded more than 12 times. I didn't set a timer but relied on my eyes instead. And there are scones in the kitchen now. Are they the best-ever? I don't know...but they're good enough for breakfast tomorrow. Which is what counts, right?
A friend of mine was mentioning to me that she didn't know that I was this into all the crafty stuff. To which I can only plead: I'm not. I don't have the spare time nor the energy right now to be all that productive. But I can dream, right? Which is why I spent the evening baking up scones and getting acquainted - first time out, thank you - with a rotary cutter. Which, I have to say, is kind of awesome. I have a major pile of 5.5" strips of fabric (pink at that!). Now I just have to brave the sewing machine - oh please oh please let her work...
Or (shamefully) the Mall - the biggie - where Sephora lives and H&M and that other store I talked about.
Or Marshall's. The place where good fabric goes to die - or at least rest up a little until someone who loves it claims it. The place where you can find little cards of mushroom-shaped plastic buttons, and fabric printed with large radishes - for cheap too.
One of the things that I love about fabric stores, and quilt stores that I've yet to notice in yarn stores is that they assume that if you're there, and you're young, that that's where you should be.
I'm a 6' girl with blue hair, sometimes purple hair, or maybe red, and a nose stud and even in this post-stitch 'n bitch world, I've been almost accosted in the yarn stores by the women working there who cannot understand that my cons-wearing, backpack-toting self might want to buy some lovely soft alpaca to make a wee stitched bear or bunny.
But in a fabric store? I fit. Part of this might be my much-longer love affair with fabric than with yarn (though I admit that I'm a lapsed seamstress) - I don't remember a time when needle and thread didn't fascinate me, when I wasn't stitching. I buy fabric helplessly - sometimes just a pack of fat quarters to tide me over, sometimes by the yard.
Or, what called my name this time, a lovely selection of pinks (I *swear* I wasn't looking for pinks...) that want to be a quilt:
I think.
Having mentioned briefly that I was dreaming of the small quilts, I'm going to continue on the tack:
I don't think quilting will ever approach knitting or even other sewing in the "hip" category. It's not cool or quick, it's fairly hard to tote along. It's fairly rare that we see a really functional piece of quilted clothing (they're there, don't get me wrong, but the quilt is still pretty much uniquely the longer-term project, not something you can do in a dark bar with some wine and friends along for the ride.
Yet. I have loved pieced patchwork since I could say "boo" to a llama. Part of it has to do with my long and well-documented love affair with a good piece of cotton - It's okay that fabric makes me swoon-y, isn't it?!
Part of it has to do with symbolism: quilts are passed down and loved through generations. They're brought out in the winter (hello canada!), they're wrapped around new babies, they cover you up when you're sick or sad.
On top of all that, they're beautiful and functional - patchwork quilts were designed to use every little bit of fabric to make one warm cover.
Can you tell that I'm planning something?!
I want to stitch.
I want to embroider tiny stitches, hand-quilt random designs, put together blankets to keep me warm (the girl who is currently enamoured of the idea of lofty wool felt and wool batting for lovely quilts).
I want to make quilts that look a little like these.
So I might have purchased this book, in the hope that it would help me get there (no one in blogland is really gloating about exchange rates and I shall not either, but, uh, *bounce*).
Wish me quilting goodness luck.
