From A - Crawling is Movement

I'm out of town again this weekend and was looking for something portable to bring with me. I finally started quilting the Toronto skyline quilt that I showed you way back at the beginning of summer.

This project has a lot of new challenges for me. It is the first time I've drawn a cityscape, the first time I've made my own pattern and the first time I've done any hand quilting since I was about 12.

I have a bad habit of avoiding things when I'm not 100% sure of how I am going to tackle them. I have this constant (and irrational) fear of doing something "wrong" or messing something up. This fear generally results in me just putting things aside when they get tricky, only to dust them off months later, buckle down and realize that it wasn't such a big deal after all. That is exactly what happened with this project. I had a few problems when I transferred the design onto the fabric, started thinking about how difficult the hand quilting was going to be and then promptly shuffled it onto the back burner.

Apparently all that was needed to get me to rescue this quilt from the timeout room guest room was the prospect of two 5 hour train rides over four days and the thought of a long weekend away without a project to keep me company.

It's not much to look at yet but I'm so glad that I am working on this. I was starting to worry that I would might never get back to it. In addition to the relief at finally overcoming my fear based procrastination, I'm finding that hand quilting is every bit as relaxing and satisfying as i dreamed it would be. I still have lots of quilting left to get this done but at least I'm finally moving.