Quilting Circle

 I belong to a couple quilting groups.  One is a real guild with members and meetings and dues.  One is a relatively formal monthly gathering with a bit of structure.  And one is a group of young women (and me) who gather when we can to learn to quilt together.  This circle of friends gathers to share our quilting knowledge, our stashes and our lives. 

The group really started a couple years ago when one of the friends wanted to learn to quilt.  She really didn't need the group to teach her as she is a phenomenal artist and precise seamstress.  However, she thought she needed some help.  One of the more advanced quilters in the group decided we were all going to make the raw edge circle quilt  using the Cluck Cluck Sew tutorial. 

Personally, I thought it was a crazy quilt for a beginner and I joined the group letting them know that I wasn't going to make one unless I could figure it out using fabric from my stash.   As we met each month, first with fabric selections and then with blocks to rotate and arrange and play with, I got more and more intrigued with the pattern.  Through a rather strange, but typical sequence of events., spud 1 found an old box of fabric from the nineties.  It contained a number of WIPS and a stack of blue fabric I was collecting to make a science geek quilt.  It was an ah ha moment and I started to assemble my circle quilt.

 I used the embroidery function on my machine to do the circle quilting.  When it came time for the binding, I started looking for something to use.  I didn't have enough of any one fabric for it and at that time, I really hadn't seen a scrappy binding.  So I kept looking.  Eventually, I was in a quilt shop in a small town while on vacation looking for a rotary cutter I needed for a different project.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bolt of the perfect blue fabric.  I grabbed it, bought enough to make the binding and stored it away until I returned home.  It was, in fact, the perfect shade.  I couldn't believe my luck in finding the right blue to match my 15 year old fabric.   When I finally started to cut into it, I noticed the writing on the selvage.  It was copyright 1995.  The same vintage as the rest of the fabric.  No wonder it matched. 

The circle continues as babies and families and other life events permit.  We've all made several quilts since that first project.  I think that we have all improved in some aspect of our quilting.    That group and this quilt are a treasured part of my life that is much richer for the chance to share the creative process on a very personal level.