My mom is my quilting inspiration. She and Dad bought me my first sewing machine when I was a girl, and I have been learning from her ever since. She makes a lot more quilts than I do, and she is definitely NOT a quick-and-dirty-diva. She does things right! She inspires me. I love to dream about quilts with her and bounce my hair-brained QD ideas off her. We QD Divas need someone like my mom to think about all the pitfalls in our schemes, before we spend a lot of time and money discovering them ourselves.
My mom was also the inspiration for this website. She has made several vintage baby quilts to give as gifts to expectant moms (like the photo at right), all of which are beautiful. Last summer while she and Dad were in Montana, I had a baby shower coming up and wanted to make one of her vintage baby quilts, but I hadn't made one before and didn't have the pattern. I intended to go to her house and find the pattern, but being the QD Diva that I am, I thought, "Who needs a pattern?!" So, I started riffling through my fabric stash and decided to use several flannels that a friend had given me. Mom usually uses a plain fabric for her background and puts bright-colored squared on top. And, that is what I intended to do, too. But . . .
As I stared at that fabric and dreamed about how to use it, a Grinch smile crept across my face. I had a QD idea! If you are a fellow QD Diva, you know the part of making this quilt that would drive me most nuts--drawing all those lines on the background, so I would know where to place the squares! Well, it occurred to me that I might be able to wing it (we Divas love to do that!) if I used the gingham check fabric as my background. Wallah! Instant grid lines on which to place my squares! So, I sandwiched my backing, batting, base fabrics and pinned basted them, cut a bunch of squares, and started sewing. I didn't mark or measure--just decided how many gingham rows to put between each square, slapped down one square after another, and kept sewing. It came together very quickly.
And, best of all, my mom LOVED the idea! She says she's going to try it next time she makes one of these quilts. Although, it's been nearly a year and she hasn't done that yet. I wonder if she has the same anxiety when she thinks of quick-and-dirty quilting that I have when I think about marking all those lines! At any rate, we started calling my quilting style "quick and dirty," and joked that I should start a blog to post my crazy ideas. The rest is history!
And, best of all, my mom LOVED the idea! She says she's going to try it next time she makes one of these quilts. Although, it's been nearly a year and she hasn't done that yet. I wonder if she has the same anxiety when she thinks of quick-and-dirty quilting that I have when I think about marking all those lines! At any rate, we started calling my quilting style "quick and dirty," and joked that I should start a blog to post my crazy ideas. The rest is history!