My sister calls me the queen of delayed gratification...

She might be right... but I'm getting gratification along the way, so I think I'm a cheater and undeserving of the title. Here's my story:

A new LDS family moved in down the street last January. Upon getting to know them, I learned that she (and he, actually) is a quilter. Neither are like your typical old-lady kind of a quilters, but still, quilters. Shortly after that, I got an advertisement in the mail for the local Quilt Show to be held at the Del Mar fairgrounds. I called up her up and asked if she'd like to go.

I've sewn for a long time.... since I was about 8. My mom was my 4-H sewing club leader. I made a SWEET pair of elastic waist pants. The print was like patches of denim randomly placed, with bananas strewn about. Like I said, SWEET! In a way, I wish I still had those pants. I was so proud of them... even got a blue ribbon at the fair!

So, being somewhat familiar with the whole sewing world, I was easily captivated by all the pretty fabrics. There's so much more on the scene nowadays than fake denim patchwork with bananas strewn about. I spent about $100 on several of these things call charm packs.

My new neighbor friend had purchased a quilted tote bag pattern and we set out to making one. I was her sewing consultant, she was my quilting consultant. Of course, I didn't want to use up all my pretties, so I headed to Jo-Ann's and got a 5-pack of fat quarters. While there, I saw a baby girl quilt kit that I liked and decided that despite my interest in the tote bag, I really wanted to try my hand at quilting, so I bought it, and sewed it up likety-split. I bound it with pink ribbon, easy peasy!




Since that only took a little more than a day, I started right into the tote bag made out a fat quarter pack from Jo-Ann's. Here it is...





I was feeling a little quilting success, and I had quite a bit left over from those 5 fat quarters that certainly couldn't just go to waste!... so I ended up finding a stacked coins pattern on the web, decided to give it a whirl, and now I have this...



Arianna and Samantha were interested in who was going to be the recipient of my newly constructed tote bag. I didn't really care. I was sewing for fun... something I had pretty much never done. But, I soon realized that I was going to have to try my hand at another one... darn. :) But still didn't want to use up my "good stuff", so while Bennett was buying a new monitor at Wal-Mart one day, I picked up a few different fabrics that seemed to match, and made this... Note the decorative stitch this time and a couple of extra pockets...





And because I had bought the wrong interfacing for the first tote, I decided that I loved this fabric enough to try to make another tote out of it. I made this pattern up and experimented with a little stipling inside. Cute, cute, cute! The satisfaction here is definitely not delayed!




I needed to go back to Jo-Anne's to get some backing fabric for the original quilts I had planned, and ended up finding some really cute fake quilt block fabric. (What's with me and the fake print fabric???) I also wanted to try my hand at binding before I got into my original fabric purchase from the Quilt Show, so I got back on the internet, learned about continuous binding and made this quilt... I think the continuous binding is pretty stinkin' cute.







There was plenty left over, so I went back to the tote bag pattern and whipped up one of these...




All this sewing and I hadn't even made one cut into the fabric I had bought at the Quilt Show. Silly me... but I was gaining some needed confidence. And I knew I wouldn't be satisfied if I didn't do it "right". So my next project, was to make a doll sized version of the intended quilt pattern, from some of the leftover Wal-Mart fabric. This time I opted for machine stitching the binding. It turned out rather cute!




So, I think I need to be called the Queen of Maximizing Gratification, cause I'm pretty gratified and I haven't even touched my original project. On the other hand... is it any wonder why it takes me so long to complete a project???



It's finally time to start my quilts... the "real" quilts... the one's I bought "charm packs" to make at the Del Mar Quilt Show. Wish me luck!... and I'll post photos when I'm finished.