The arts of my grandmother's grandmother

Took an introductory quilting class today with my mother - it was her birthday present to me. It was my idea.

Cheesy movies and heritge villages aside, quilting is cool. Take discarded bits of this and that and make art with it. Chaos into order, with a side of connecting with my roots, since Mennonites are notorious quilters. Plus, who wouldn't want a quilt as a gift? If I can master this, I have Christmases covered for years to come. My mom also has Christmases and birthdays covered, since there is a staggering amount of quilting paraphenelia out there. It's big business, is quilting. Wheel cutters, graphed cutting boards and rulers, quilting sewing machine feet (gotta get one of those), precut squares, special quilting cotton...this is not your gramma's pasttime.

I'm looking forward to completing my little braided runner and moving on to bigger and better things. There's all sort of patterns for fancy wall hangings, purses, that sort of thing, but I want to do big ass quilts. A quilt for our bed. A quilt for our spare bed. A quilt for my parents, for my in-laws, for my best friend.

A quilt for a cradle, perhaps.