100% Quilty

The above picture looks kind of quilty, doesn't it? It's the top layer of my ornament box after putting away my Christmas ornaments. I've used only purple ornaments for some years now. The purples shade from blue-violet to violet-red. This year I decided to widen the spectrum a little bit and add red, which you see represented in the top right corner with a red glitter ball. And, no, I'm not a member of the Red Hat Society.

Speaking of quilty, one of the things I love about making quilts and being a member of a quilt guild is how very supportive the world of quiltmaking is. I started thinking on this topic after having lunch today with my husband. We were listening to a political news story and arguing about the validity of the acts discussed. While not at polar opposites politically, we disagree about certain things. I was adamant in telling him that he was wrong and I was right. I am 100%, positively, absolutely sure of my rightness. As is he.

But in the world of quiltmaking, we all agree that there is no 100%, positively, absolutely right way to make a quilt. You can have a perfect quarter-inch seam or your personal quarter inch. You can hand-quilt, machine-quilt, tie, tack, button or fuse your quilts. You can use cotton, wool, polyester, bamboo, or silk batting, or no batting at all. You can sew twigs between two layers of plastic wrap and call it an art quilt if you so desire. And you are not wrong.

The world of quilting, at least in my guild, is all-encompassing, accepting and forgiving. We love your very first yarn-tied one-patch quilt and we love the blue-ribbon, award-winning, 3000 hours of hand stitching, whole-cloth quilt. We applaud your choice of muddy browns and grays and taupes and we cheer your rainbow in-your-face colors, too. We are just happy that you, too, decided to join us on our quilting venture. It's so good to have you.

Happy quilting, everybody.