Friday, July 27, 2007

Friday Flashback

I've mused upon this identity thing before. I make quilts, but I don't consider myself a quilter. I can throw together a pretty decent dinner, but don't consider myself a cook. I can knit a sweater or a scarf or a king sized lace coverlet, I can grow strawberries and green beans and gladiolus, I can drive a Cadillac, perform the Heimlich maneuver, and trim the branches on a tree, but I don't consider myself a knitter, a gardener, a chauffeur, an EMT or an arborist either. But for the sake of this post, I make quilts.

The thought of sewing bits of fabric together to make something I couldn't wear never occurred to me before the fall of 1992. Never. I don't think, before that, I even noticed quilts. No one in my family made quilts (and as far as I know, no one does to this day.) But on a fall day in 1992 I got whacked up the side of my head by this:
Not this quilt specifically (it's from Eleanor Burns Quilt in a Day pattern) but one very much like it. I was standing in Ruffled Elegance's old store on Main Street in St. Jacobs, Ontario (before they moved, then went out of business) and this masterpiece was hanging in an atrium, the fall sun made it glow. King sized, hand quilted feathers - it was glorious. And I was cocky (stupid?) enough to think $400? I can make that for 1/10 th of that. Ha! I should have just forked over the bucks and been done with it. In the long run, it would have been WAY cheaper.

5 comments:

Rose said...

You said "it would have been WAY cheaper."
Amen to that statement...I am all the time saying if I didn't like quilting, photography, and reading my house would be a lot neater. And I would probably have nice clothes to wear, instead of every time something comes along, I have to make a mad dash to the mall to find something decent to wear cause jeans are not appropriate for every where! Even though I say I don't care if I am buried in them...

Quiltgal said...

Mee too Dorothy, anytime i see something crafty and pretty, with alarge price tag. I think I can make that!

Sheila said...

As always, love your blog. You are a hoot.. .and so much like me! (except much funnier & more fun)

This reminds me of a sign I saw at a craft fair in Texas

" Yes, you could go home and make it cheaper....
But will you? "

Sheila in Ohio

Anonymous said...

You're so articulate. I love "got whacked up the side of the head." I've had two passions in my life that occurred to me exactly that way: sewing and having children. It was literally that sudden, that stunning, and that simple. And neither one could I do cheaper myself!

Christine Thresh said...

I wss once struck dumb by a display of handspun, hand dyed yarn. I spent the next 10 years spinning and dyeing yarn with berries, roots, and flowers. It was so much fun.
Quilting came along in 1994 when I had to make a baby shower present for my soon-to-arrive grandson. I only planned on making one quilt, but here I am years later still loving quilts.