Friday, April 17, 2009

Practice Makes Perfect

Our Capital Quilters Guild meeting featured a delightful guest speaker, Cathie Hoover, from Modesto, California. I was not the only member who came home from the meeting thinking, "I need to get busy and make some quilts!" Once again, I was impressed with how much better the quilts look in person than they do in pictures on the Internet. They just don't capture the sparkle and detail. Cathie must be a Seamstress Supreme, for she has made garments included in the Fairfield Fashion Show, and includes many intricate embellishments in her quilts. And I liked that most of her quilts have something whimsical or humorous, like a black-and-white cow that reads "No! No! No!" in black text over white. But at night, it says "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in glow-in-the-dark paint.
Anyway, I mentioned yesterday that I had made a non-art baby quilt, and was going to try to pin it on the Gammill before I went to work.
I have actually only used my Gammill once since January, when I quilted another baby quilt. You know, if you don't do something for awhile, you get out of practice. "Use it or lose it." So, I had purchased my backing fabric, washed and dried it, and got ready to load it on the machine.
Guess what I completely forgot?
You have to piece the backing and square it up before you load it on the machine! Duh!
So I had this three-and-a-half yard long piece of fabric in my hands, looking at the leader for the backing, and doing a mental head smack.
Needless to say, by the time I got my backing ironed, pieced, squared up, trimmed, and cut the batting to size, it was time to get ready for work.
I need to make a little time each day for quilting.

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