How it all started

Let me start by saying that I was never a crafty person, a quilter, a home decorator, a lover of fine fabrics, a colourful person or very imaginative. I failed sewing at school. I think because I did not have the patience or the inkling. In my eyes, I was a tomboy not a "sissy". I didn't have time for girly things. It was boring. Who would sit around sewing when there was a tree to climb or a peg gun to shoot? I was athletic not creative. Give me a fun run or a game of squash, not a craft project!

In the mid 90's (which was my mid 20's) I was sharing a rental flat with my boyfriend and a very crafty girlfriend of mine. I used to come home and she'd be sewing or doing something crafty - creating things that I could never imagine possible. How she came up with these ideas I do not know. How she found all the materials when we live in a small town is beyond me but I certainly couldn't contemplate taking a day trip to Canberra to buy craft supplies!

One morning I woke up and decided I was going to make a quilt. If Mandy could craft then I could quilt! How? Who knows? With what? No idea. I did not own a needle or thread. Didn't have a sewing box. Certainly didn't own a sewing machine. I really was clueless.

My flatmate Mandy suggested I go down to the newsagency and find a pattern. From what? I didn't even know you could buy patchwork magazines. I just wasn't that way inclined. If it wasn't a sports or adventure mag, I didn't want to know about it.

Off I eagerly went to the newsagency where I spent some time looking through mags and eventually came home with a pattern. I wanted to start on this quilt then and there. Well, what a nightmare! I then needed to get the materials! Where do you get them? Mandy pointed me in the direction of Cooma (which is 65kms away) and told me to go into the Fabric Salon to start looking. Poor Marney, the owner, must have thought I was mad. I was browsing in the shop for ages when she asked me what I needed. All I could do was point at the photo in the magazine and say "I don't know the first thing about sewing but I want to make that and I want to handsew all of it." Marney's eyes must have nearly popped out of her head but she kindly helped me to pick fabric for the blocks and told me to come back when they were finished.

I was so excited to be starting this project. I got home with all my beautiful fabrics and then read the pattern. How was I going to cut the fabric out? Some improvisation was required. I found some ordinary everyday scissors to use. All I had was a 30cm ruler and a pencil of which I used to very slowly draw the outline on the material for each piece in the block and then cut the pieces out. (Little did I know that there were such things as cutting boards and rotary cutters to speed up the process!)

Well, it tooks me hours to cut the pieces out for some of the hearts. It was exhausting. It took me even longer to piece the blocks together! Each block took me at least an hour to do. It was going to take forever (in actual fact it took years). I'd do a bit and lose interest and put it away for a few weeks/months and even years at a time. I didn't even know whether I was doing it right. It was all pure guess.

Close to 10 years went by and I became friends with Maggie, who is now one of my dearest friends. Maggie is extremely passionate about anything to do with sewing. She is also a fabricholic. She found out about this little project of mine and encouraged me to go to the Snowy Mountains Quilters meetings in the hope that I'd become passionate to finally finish my quilt. I very nervously went along with her one evening.

Welcome to the quilting world, Shauna!

(PS It's now nearly 11.30am and I haven't started my Xmas decoration project! Must away and start today!)