Quilt squares.

A few years ago, one of my sisters called me to say she had seen the cutest quilt that one of our favorite local artisans had made and that she was going to start a quilt class. Pretty much everything that Joy created was darling, so I said I'm in!

The concept was, that 5 of us would come to her house one night a week for 5 weeks. Each week, someone got to choose their quilt colors/squares, then we all sat down at sewing machines to sew them into "9 patches" and then those got sewn together and ... voila! At the end of 5 weeks we each had a quilt top. The bug bit.

The hunt for cute fabric then became one of our favorite things to do. We would travel far and wide to visit cute quilt shops at anyone's recommendation. Sometimes we had a specific quilt in mind, and sometimes we didn't ... if the fabric was stinkin' cute, we had to have it. (Sort of like it is when you first discover scrapbooking. You just want to have one of almost everything, until you acquire so much you know you couldn't use it up in a lifetime. And then the style of scrapbooking changes and all the supplies you thought were so cute, aren't so cute anymore ... uh oh.)

I think the best part of quilting for me was after I had cut all of those little squares. There they sat, right in front of me, color coordinated, and adorable, just waiting to fulfill the measure of their creation. One of my sisters would pat her piles of squares because they were just so cute and she was so proud.

Once those squares are cut and ready to go, you already feel a sense of accomplishment, even before the sewing begins! I think I finished about 6 quilts before the burn out hit - as it often does when you discover a new hobby. I laid down my rotary cutter for a few years, but now that I have a grandbaby on the way ... I'm cutting squares again. And they make me happy.