sew I was thinking...

Did you know that September is National Sewing Month? Indeed, according to the big signs at the fabric shop that I saw today, that's the truth. Fitting.

On a whim I decided to sew a baby blanket for a friend today (well, for her baby, technically). I had a hunch there might be good sales on fabric, and I was right! Score. I figured this would be "really easy" to do. Oh my. Actually, it isn't that difficult (a flannel chenille blanket) but it's a serious pain in the butt because it involves sooooooooo much sewing, and sooooooooo much cutting. And then I ran out of thread when I was about 2/3 done with the astronomical amount of sewing I had to do. Blarg! It would be an hour trip to go into town for more, so I'll do it tomorrow. I have to go to the feed store, and I figure as long as I'm there I may as well drive all the way into town, it's sort of like combining trips. Sort of. Anyway, I hope the end result will be adorable. And oh wow, I can't sew straight. I hope my wavy lines look whimsical rather than messy! So far I vastly prefer the rag quilt process (I made one, but I can't show you for a few more months...) ;-)

Anyway, I think I'm in the process of becoming nuts about quilting. It all started a few months ago when I needed a particular fabric scrap out of the fabric drawer, and had to rummage all the way to the bottom of the drawer, and I got totally annoyed, emptied it out, sorted it by color/print/fabric type, and organized it into bags. I still can't believe I did that. "What are you going to do with all that?" my mom said. I replied, "I'm going to make a quilt." She laughed. I made one (a rag quilt). She was amazed. And it's kinda snowballed from there. I ogled the pretty quilts at the fair. One of my fellow bloggers is taking a quilting class and I'm sort of drooling with anticipation to see what she makes, and sorta wish I would have thought to take a class at the same time (you know, like safety in numbers or something). I decided to buy a book. It cost as much as one class session would cost. I want to learn more about it in the secrecy of my own space, where nobody has to watch me mess things up. Maybe then I'd take a class. Except it's another expense (I don't need more expenses) and it's another drain on my time (that's also problematic). Hmmm.

But I also don't believe until waiting until retirement to do interesting things. And I totally want to make a huge awesome quilt.

See, I have this little fantasy. It's evening, I'm back from a sunset trail ride with a view of jagged mountains in the distance, maybe I've just eaten cheesecake, maybe I'm watching Star Wars, and I'm snuggled under my beautiful hand-made quilt with my hunky cowboy lovemuffin as the chilly evening breeze blows across the prairie.... And then the whole thing screeches to a halt, because I'm obviously missing quite a few of the essential ingredients to that fantasy.

But I could make the quilt. And eat cheesecake. And watch Star Wars.

Oh speaking of such things, there were TWO count them two bolts of hunky-half-naked-cowboy fabric at the store today. They are mocking me. They call to me, they beckon me, they challenge me to figure out how to make *something* out of them. Hmmm.