Quiltin' of the Green

Look out, Denver National Quilt Festival! Here I come!


Every girl should have a quilt to match her favorite dress.


And her favorite skirt...


Ever since emergency back surgery in 2004, I haven't spent as much time at my sewing machine as I would have liked because, well, long story short: It hurt too much to sit.

In December I began physical therapy, hoping to find out what kind of sitting position on the bike would be most comfortable for my back. For years I have been expecting to be sentenced to a recumbent. Which is SO low to the ground. And SO expensive. And SO heavy!

Turns out I've been arching my back ever since surgery. I probably needed physical therapy years ago, but I didn't know.

Turns out, walking and riding a bike aren't the only places I've been arching my back. I was arching my back at the sewing machine, too.

I've been compensating. When you compensate for something that hurts, you hurt something else.

So now the mission is to turn the jelly in my belly back into muscle. I have to learn to tuck that tummy without using my shoulders, hips or rib cage. I have to learn how to walk and sit and ride a bike and even do yoga all over again.

And it's helping!



Last year, I wanted to finish a snowflake quilt for the Denver National Quilt Festival. I'd started the quilt long before I had the proper tools, so the corners didn't square up perfectly when I finally began assembling it. Then I wrecked my bike and broke my wrist and had my hair chopped off.

That snowflake quilt still isn't done. I do promise it will get done one day. Even if it becomes a stack of the fanciest potholders on the planet.



Two years ago I made a small snowflake quilt for the Denver National Quilt Festival and Quilts at the Capitol. My mini quilt didn't make it into the Quilts at the Capitol because it was two inches too short. I'd measured before I finished the crocheted edging.

Rejection stinks.



Four years ago, I entered my Fourteener Quilt in Quilts at the Capitol, the first time I was ever juried into that show. In 2007, it was my first ever quilt accepted into the Denver National Quilt Festival, which started the bug to which I've now become helplessly addicted.

We've been promising for four years to hang this literal masterpiece on the wall above our staircase. It's hanging there all right. Folded neatly right over the banister, safe and sound. But not on display.

Lizard, can we put that quilt up on the wall this weekend? Pretty please with gravy on top? I'll make homemade biscuits and gravy... (his favorite meal except for chicken fried steak, which I have yet to master)



Five years ago, I entered the rainbow applique lizard quilt I'd started for The Lizard before surgery but didn't finish until many years after surgery because sitting at the sewing machine hurt so much. This quilt rests upon our bed all year long now.



This year, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to do something from stash and not have to buy anything except perhaps the batting. I wanted to make something totally unexpected and eye-popping. I wanted to make something I can finish and make no excuses for not finishing.



I dug out the leftovers from my skirt and dress, and I began playing around.

Addicted! All over again.

I get so excited about this quilt every night that I get to work on it, I have trouble falling asleep afterward because the adrenaline is so potent!

This project is just the kind of winter pick-me-up I needed!

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