Monday, August 30, 2010

Interludes and Distractions

I haven't been keeping up with my self-imposed schedule of a weekly post on Sundays, and I apologize to  those of you who expect that from me. Home office renovations, work and back-to-school preparations have been keeping me out of my sewing room for the past month. It's been bothering me, but I will be very happy once my house is back in order (or in as much "order" as it ever is), and even happier once I'm back at my sewing machine!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

You know you're a quilter

This is taken from a thread that I started on www.quiltingboard.com It's from the contributions of a lot of the quilters there, and some additions from the quilting group at LiveJournal. If you distribute, please mention quiltingboard.com as the source. You have no idea how much it would tickle me to get this in my inbox 10 years from now...

You know you're a quilter when...

1. You pay more attention to the quilts in the movie than what the actors are saying.
2. Meals are an interruption
3. you see a nice shirt, skirt or dress, you mentally go through your stash to see if you have coordinating fabric and figure out what block the garment would look best in.
4. you rewind or pause a movie to get a better look at the quilt in the background.
5. you stop driving or walking to dig out a camera, cell phone, or paper and pen to capture an image of something for a new quilt idea.
6. You wish quilters got credit in films like actors and tech staff do.
7. you go to bed, you think about what you want to sew in the morning instead of what you plan to make for breakfast.
8. you trace a design in a hospital waiting room.
9. you look at the tile design on the floor and figure out how to piece it in fabric.
10. You pick threads off your clothes every time you walk out the door.
11. You pick threads off your spouse, the dogs, the cat...
12. You see quilt designs everywhere.
13. You dream about quilts
14. You are districated by the carpet pattern underneath the buffet table.
15. You color your small square window panes in a nice 9-patch design
16. You plan your vacations around the locations of fabric stores.
17. You realize the fabric you are sitting on at the fast food joint would make a great quilt.
18. You copy tile patterns from hotels, churches, old government buildings...
19. Nobody eats in the dining room because your "project" is taking up the entire table.
20. You buy antique quilt at the swap meet even though it has too many holes.
21. Your dog has a coat made from an antique quilt.
22. You are covered with threads all the time.
23. you can't just sit and watch TV; you have to be sewing or quilting at the same time.
24. Your car is trained to turn in to every fabric store parking lot it passes.
25. You come home to find a purple bin filled with fabrics at your door that "a friend" bought at a garage sale and knew you would like it.
26. A neighbor says he likes the humming sound of your sewing machine late at night.
27. Your friends' clothes remind you of quilt blocks
28. you can't leave home without your sewing machine
29. You are thrilled to find a shirt, skirt or dress at the thrift shop that will work great in your next project.
30. A friend hands you a giant bag of her husband's old silk ties.
31. you go to a well-stocked quilt store and you can't find any accessories that you do NOT have
32. You miss your sewing machine more than your family
33. you disappear for the weekend into your sewing room
34. You save greeting cards and pictures from magazines for a future quilt design
35. you look for fabric that's based on ancient tile designs
36. you lay out floor and wall tiles based on a quilt pattern.
37. you are attracted to a man's tie because the fabric would look great in a quilt.
38. you tell your kids/spouse "Just one more row!"
39. you tell your family "whoever finds thread in their food wins a prize" at dinner time.
40. you find the stair railing in the courthouse has a very interesting pattern
41. you cut up carpet tile squares into triangles for the floor.
42. you bore your non-quilting friends with endless talk about quilting
43. you run out of storage space for fabric and unfinished projects.
44. you would rather spend money on fabric than new shoes or clothes.
45. you are directionally challenged, yet you can find quilt stores that are hidden in the woods
44. you quit volunteering at church because they threw away some antique quilts.
45. you sit down at your sewing machine at 7PM and before you know it, your neighbor is banging on the wall at 11:30PM and he wants to sleep.
46. your vacation consists of attending quilt shows and fabric shopping.
47. You decorate pies and cakes to look like quilts.
48. you go on vacation, you bring a list of all the quilt stores within driving distance of your destination.
49. you hear that someone sewed through their finger and your first thought is "That's awful! Another broken needle!"
50. You prepare to paint your barn or garage by looking at quilt block patterns.
51. your automatic response to any request from any family member is "just let me finish this one seam"
52. you observe that the quilting in the toilet paper could have been done better.
53. you wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if you can sneak out to the quilting room.
54. your husband automatically turns the car around because you spotted a quilt shop on a side road
55. you meet another quilter for the first time and chat for an hour before either of you realize it
56  you seriously consider stealing your best friend's shirt because it's just the right color.
57. when your granddaughter brings the picture she drew in art class home from school and you want to turn it into a quilt.
58. you wake up earlier when you're on vacation than when you're working so you can have more quilting time
59. you get into the car and you realize you are still wearing a thimble.
60. you try to surprise your kids with a "fun new place to visit" and they reply "let me guess - a quilt shop?"
61. you take your sewing machine on a 10-day road trip.
62. you want to re-create the stained-glass window from church as a quilt.
63. The first place you visit in the library is the new display quilt.
64. you envision all the horses in the pasture wearing quilted blankets.
65. you make the dog wait to go out so you can finish a seam.
66. you ask to trace cardboard butterflies hanging in a florist's window.
67. your machine is out for its annual tune-up and you clean your house for "something to do"
68  you don't iron clothing, but you do iron scraps of fabric
69. you delay surgery to attend the state quilt convention
70  you "borrow" a napkin from a fancy restaurant so you can make a quilt designed like it.
71. you can't stay out of fabric stores, even though you already own enough fabric for a lifetime.
72. you redesign your kitchen to include an island large enough to baste a queen-size quilt.
73. you start sewing at 2AM because you have a lot of blocks to finish.
74. you don't remember the names of the towns you visited, but you do remember how to get to the local Quilt Store in that town.
75. you can measure a block from a computer image.
76. you can't stand the heat, but will sew in an unairconditioned room for hours, sweat rolling down your face.
77. you are in an airplane looking out the window and see many many quilt patterns on the ground.
78. your children/grandchildren refuse to go out with you when they find out you are only going to a fabric shop.
79. the ONLY shopping you like to do is for fabric.
80. you must stop at the fabric store before going to the grocery store (when you are out grocery shopping)
81. you practice quilting feathers and other designs with the lawn mower.
82. you are trying to figure out how to reproduce the light and shadow on the ceiling tiles in a quilt while laying back in a dentist's chair.
83. your spouse is trained to call you to the computer when he sees a quilt in a house listing photo.
84. you impress people with your ability to know the dimensions of something without a ruler.
85. someone says "what nice points", you take it as a compliment.
86. you offer to take your neighbor's donation box to the drop off so you can root through it for clothing that would make a nice addition to your stash.
87. you photohgraph brickwork for a future quilt design.
88. you select gift wrap because the pattern would look good in a quilt.
89. you cut a nice looking tie off someone's neck to use in a project.
90. sofas are for quilts to sit on, not people.
91. you think it's entirely normal to find needles in the bed.
92. when you see something pretty, your usual way of expressing praise is, "That would make a lovely quilt!"
93. you ignore the main portion of a painting because you're too busy looking at the potential quilt designs in the border.
94. when you hear that someone is pregnant, it takes you no more than ten seconds to offer them a baby quilt.

95. you recognize yourself in this list.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Idea explosion

Of course, I have a great idea for a quilt, and I"m at work and nowhere near my EQ7 software. Sigh.