My Quilting Identity Crisis

I tell people that I am a quilter, and I think of myself that way, but some days I wonder if I really am a quilter. 

First of all, I make lots of quilt tops, but I very rarely quilt them myself, except for the small ones, and even then it's only with straight lines and a walking foot. I've never mastered free motion quilting although I've taken many classes over the years. In my humble opinion, free motion quilting is a different skill set from piecing. Piecing is methodical and simple. You feed the fabric through the machine. I find machine piecing very soothing. In free motion quilting, you need to move the fabric in different directions to create the design. It's like doodling, which I'm not good at, at all. In high school, I occasionally felt the urge to draw a flower in the margins of my notebook, but that was about it. I can't draw at all. Which is ironic, since my Mother is a painter.

Second, I've been looking at my list. My quilting list is a little infamous among my friends. Right now it is about 6 pages long. It contains my finished projects for the year, and what I'm currently working on as well as all the "UFOs". I have lots of categories on it to break things up, such as "projects with deadlines," "gifts to make," and one of my favorites, "projects I've lost interest in".

So far in 2012, I've completed 27 projects, and I've given everything away as gifts except for a set of placemats and a small lap quilt. Out of these 27 projects, 16 were pillowcases and only two items were actual quilts. Although, I do have 11 quilts all quilted (in 2011, not by me, of course) just waiting to have bindings sewn on.

So, from now on, I'm going to identify myself as a "sewist with quilting tendencies" (sounds kind of fancy, doesn't it?). 

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy