Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Collaborative Quilting

So I volunteered my sewing services to my school for a charity auction and then realized I had so many other projects going on that I would never get anything done. So what is my solution? Recruit unsuspecting victims to help me out!

Mwahh haa haa haa! (evil laugh)

So I convince my work friends Kristie and Lynn (both fairly new to sewing) that we should start a "Stitch-n-Bitch" sewing club and have some fun crafty time together outside of work. They agree, but of course... little do they know what they have just agreed to!

I wrangle them over to my place and pitch them the idea. That together we create a wall hanging quilt to donate to the school's charity auction the next month. It was to benefit our school library which will be undergoing a very large overhaul this coming summer.

To my surprise, they agree. So I decide rather than tempt fate by bossing them around even more, I let them pick a pattern, a theme and some fabrics. They chose to create a "calendar quilt" since that meant that we would only have to make 12 blocks. We each picked a month or two to start on and dove right in.

Bless her little heart, Lynn, we found out, had never sewn a thing before this. Kristie had only started sewing last summer and claimed to be deathly afraid of quilting, but she is a whiz with figuring out patterns and the mechanics of most sewing machines. We started slowly, but as they got the hang of it, we quickly created a fabulous quilt.

I was really happy - as were they - with the final product. We each made some of the blocks and then I quilted and bound it. In the auction it sold for 175 dollars! Wowwza!

Next month, a full bedroom set! (just kidding)