Everything old is new again

Years ago I used to cross stitch night after night and I loved it and it would be nothing to sit in front of the TV from 8.00 pm to 1.00 am with my embroidery floss, pattern and stitch away.  I was also into quilting and have made a couple of quilts, wall hangings etc.  Time moves on and 2 kids later, different interests and aging eyes I stopped doing cross stitch and quilting didn't really go with my change in home decorating from "country" to "modern".  I'm at the computer a lot with photo editing, photo book projects, blogging, reading blogs, research etc. and decided that I wanted to do some sewing again after being totally inspired by Elise's quilt making efforts.  This girl amazes me that she picks up a craft, sees a few tutorials and runs with it whereas I like to go to a class, learn how to do something and then do it.  I like the class because of the interactive like minded people and it's an enjoyable social outing as well.

All that aside Elise's quilts have inspired me to make a triangle quilt for no particular reason other than a TV blanket.  I actually want to make this crochet blanket that Christine at Suburban Jubilee made (I told you everything old is new again) however that could be a 3 year project and sewing a quilt would be an immediate 2 month project so I thought I would start with that.  I headed off to the local quilt shop which has been there for over 20 years and bought some fabrics to start a little quilt.  I went with "grey and blues" in mind but they didn't really have anything that I wanted in those tones and it was nearly school pick up time so I just bought some pinks and blues to start with.

I also recently found my step by step instructions on how to cut the quilting fabric again so after about 2 minutes all of this came back to me again.  One thing that I loved was using this step by step called "half square triangles" to get two triangles sewn together from a square rather than sewing each triangle piece by piece.  I am used to running the thread in between starting sewing once piece and bringing the next piece to start sewing rather than starting, cutting, each individual triangle or square so that was okay but making 2 triangles from the one square sewn together saves heaps of time and was great as I just ran 6 squares one after the next then turned them around and sewed the other side and then cut them on the mat.

Here's to the everything old is new again and who would have thought that I would be making a quilt in 2013?  Stranger things have happened I guess like owning chickens, making my own jam and growing vegetables.