Quilting?

I love the idea of quilting.

Actually, I love the idea of having a little girl to make cute dresses for - then using the scraps to make cute quilts.

There are a couple of problems with this idea.  First of all, I don't know how to sew.  (I have yet to figure out how to thread my garage sale sewing machine, in case you were dying for an update.)  And secondly, I don't have a little girl.

Technically, we do have a little girl - my stepdaughter Lauren is 7.  But her mom kind of skipped the "little girl" wardrobe phase and went straight to tween.  She always looks adorable - don't get me wrong.  Very fashionista.  But I always love to see a little girl dressed like this:

While my stepdaughter was more likely to be seen dressed like this:


Both outfits are from Gymboree

And now Lauren is getting too old to make cutesy clothes for anyway.  So that ship has sailed.  I'm still trying to wear the boyfriend down on the idea of having another baby - but quite frankly, I'm not even sure if I'm fully on board with the idea anymore.  And since both of my sisters and my best friend seem perfectly happy not to procreate ever, I guess I'm going to have to wait for granddaughters.  But at least I can try and learn to sew first, so I'll be a pro by then.

The idea to learn how to quilt began to blossom when I saw this quilt in a Pottery Barn catalog:

I thought, "Surely, that can't be that hard.  Not $159 worth of hard."

Don't you love my arrogance confidence?

Then Target came out with their own knock-off version, so making one was no longer necessary.



Circo Love & Nature Bedding Collection

 I still liked the idea of me turning out quilts.  Handing them out as presents.  Everyone applauding my homemaking skills... 

Every so often I would find myself perusing Moda's Bake Shop for free patterns, because Moda makes the cutest quilting fabric.  If you haven't looked into quilting lately, you probably still think it's mostly a lot of this:

Not ugly, but definitely more fitting for your grandmother's nursing home than anywhere else. 

But there are lots of great, modern designs being put out right now.  And they're released in coordinated collections, so you don't have to worry about everything going together.  In fact, you can buy pre-cut quilt pieces - so basically all you have to do is sew.

Easy, right?

In case you know differently (you know, from experience and not just fantasies in your own mind), just keep it to yourself for the time being.  Because look what I just won on Ebay.

Two charm packs of Moda's Fandango.  Charm packs are the smallest of the pre-cut quilt sets.  Instead of spending hundreds buying yards of fabric - you buy just a little and get one of all the different prints in a line.  The charm packs are made up of 42 5-inch squares.  Here's a bigger look at the collection.

Totally cute, right?

I scored both of them for $8.99 plus $2.50 for shipping (or $11.49 total) - which I think is a good deal because they retail individually for $9.50 each.

Yes, it might have been a bit of an impulse shopping, spurred on by the fact that I had almost that exact amount leftover in my PayPal account.  But I'd rather think of it as my first baby step into the amazing world of sewing.  The goal is to make a quilt.  Whether or not it will be nice enough to gift or will end up hidden in the back of a closet, we're just going to have to wait and see.