Shortly after my first quilting class, I was told that there was a new quilting group forming, and I was asked if I would be interested in joining. You bet I was! The group was made up of gals who didn't even know how to sew sitting right alongside others who had been quilting for many years and could rightfully be called experts. As seems to be the case whenever quilters gather, everyone's efforts were genuinely praised and both beginners and the more experienced alike felt free to bring questions and problems to the group for help and suggestions. The support of those other 15-20 women was invaluable to my personal growth as a quilter.
Then I started working for a quilt store making shop samples and custom-ordered quilts. This was very interesting and certainly forced me to work "outside the box" using colors, fabrics and patterns that I would have never chosen myself. The downside was that I was always working under a deadline, and there was more work than I could keep up with and still find time to do any quilting for myself. It was a great job and I feel very grateful for the experience it gave me, but eventually I decided to let it go.
Now I'm to the point where I'm seriously interested in building an online market for my one-of-a-kind handmade baby quilts. I've been working with my web designer daughter in readying a website to showcase my baby quilts and offer them for sale. We're getting close to the debut of same, and in the meantime, I thought starting this quilting blog would go hand-in-hand with and be an introduction to marketing the baby quilts.
I'd love to have input from all of you and am eager to meet new quilting friends through this blog. Please feel free to share my blog address with anyone you think might be interested. Thanks so much for stopping by.
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4 comments:
Wow Mama Pea, I'm amazed at your quilts and that you have time to manage 2 blogs now. Good luck with your baby quilt sales and doing something that you love to share with others.
Ruthie - Thank you so much for being so complimentary about my quilts. It's something I just love doing.
Of course, this week has been busier than usual so at the moment I'm questioning my sanity. (I'd feel a lot better if my house was clean!)
Next week will be better, right? And I bet I'll even find some time to spend in my quilting studio!
Quilting for hire is a double edged sword. It can be interesting to work with patterns and colors you might not choose yourself. But it does take time away from things you'd rather do for yourself and sometimes what the customer wants isn't what you want to do.
That's one reason I like to make baby quilts. It's a relatively quick project and I make what I like :)
Jenyfer - I may have nightmares for the rest of my life about a large wall hanging I did as a custom piece. It had an appliqued pink flamingo on it that gave me so much trouble! (Never liked flamingos to begin with and now I can hardly stand the sight of one.)
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