Years in the making

So, if you've been reading for a little while, you know that I've recently started sewing. Like most of the "Things That Are New" that I take up, sewing was something I thought about a LOT before actually getting to the DOING IT part. My usual pattern has me waxing romantic about whatever it is I'm obsessing about at any given moment - making jam, planting a vegetable garden, running, steeking (still haven't done that one)... -, alternately sighing about how I'd love to be able to do "that" and hemming and hawing about how "I-don't-have-the-time-It-looks-too-complicated-I-can't-really-handle-another-obsession-anyway", stalking researching people who actually DO do "that", making the - ahem - occasional discreet purchase to prepare for when I actually DO do "that", and then... FINALLY... doing it.

When it comes to sewing, the thing I've really, really, REALLY wanted to do is make a quilt. Really. I've been thinking about making a quilt for... oh... YEARS. And I haven't. First because it involved sewing (big Duh moment right there, I know). And even if I DID know how to sew, it looked hard. I would look at all these beautiful quilts people were churning out (the blogosphere is FILLED with quilters, y'all!), and I'd feel overwhelmed. So I stalkedresearched-sighed-hemmed-and-hawed some more, and that was pretty much it.

This weekend I'd had enough of that, and decided to "Just Do It" already. Sure, I'm only "just" learning to sew. Sure, I have no idea what I'm doing... But guess what? I'm a reasonably intelligent woman, my sewing teacher lives right across the street from me, and if all else fails, I've got some pretty impressive Google-Fu skills to fall back on. My imaginary quilt wasn't going to make itself.

I've settled on Red Pepper Quilt's Alice pattern, which seems to be fairly doable, at least to my newbie eyes. I made my first block last night, and tempted as I might be to just shrug it off with a "Oh, it's nothing fancy, just a simple Log Cabin block after all, no biggie", I'm not going to do that.

This block, this first wee step on the way to my very first quilt, is the result of YEARS of anticipation, not to mention 2 hours of cutting and sewing last night (I know, I'm learning...), and that makes it pretty frickin' awesome, if you ask me.


Oh, and for those of you who come here for the knitting, I'm working on a sock too :)


Happy Crafting, Everyone!