Well here I am...

Here it is, the inaugural post (well actually not really since I posted a testing123 post last year and that's as far as my first blog attempt went...) But this is the REAL first post, regarding my project du jour, my Grandmother's Garden quilt - with a twist. My MIL started doing one of these and of course I had to join along (see title above re: fickle crafter). I tried my hand at quilting before, but never liked being tied to a sewing machine. I need my crafts to be pretty portable and "done in front of the tv"-able. Hence my addiction to sock knitting.

But the Grandmother's Garden quilt seemed to satisfy most of my requirements. I could do it anywhere, with a little pre-planning and it was all done by hand, which I really like. There's a great tutorial of how to make one here so I won't get into the specifics of how to do it. Needless to say it's pretty tedious and time-consuming. Right up my sock-loving alley.

Most GGQ's look sort of like this:

















With a connecting color or "grout" as I called it, in between each of the flowers. I didn't really like this at first, so I tried something different, without the grout, which gives me this:

It's a pretty crappy picture, but this is what it looks like without a connecting row. I kind of like the more modern look this gives.

The strangest thing about putting the flowers together this way is that the rows sort of go on the diagonal, with partial flowers used to fill in where you need them. Again, I like this modern twist, but I know it makes my MIL twitch when she sees it (I figure it's good for her). Trying to figure out how many more flowers I need to finish it is a little tough though. By my best guess I need 3 more whole diagonal rows and then a bunch of partial rows to square it off. I have quite a few flowers finished, and we'll see how far they get me. I'm pretty much ready for this to be done, since I've already started another GGQ for my brother and his girlfriend for Christmas - a not scrappy and more traditional pattern, but that's for another post.

Oh yeah I forgot the best part of this quilt. I'm using all different fabrics - no flowers are the same. I'm reusing about 10-15 different yellow centers, but I'm trying not to put like centers next to each other. Anyways, I haven't had to spend a dime on any fabric - it's all my MIL's scraps. She probably has enough fabric to make a million of these quilts. I'll eventually have to pay for a batting, backing fabric and the quilting, but for now it's nice to have a "free" project.

Well I guess this is probably long enough for an inaugural post. I tend to ramble when I type as well as talk I guess. Hopefully I'll be back - I definitely have enough projects to ramble on and on about.