Contesttime!

November 26th, 2013 by Jan

None of the quilts I make will ever win a prize.

I am not a quality quilter and by no means are they perfect. I never use a pattern, make a plan, and yet, a nice quilt emerges in the process. A lot of times I cut fabric, sew it together, hate it, rip it all apart and start again.

I love making quilts. Both for the process and the product. I’ve given some away, and Ken and I sleep under several each night.

For the last 10 years I haven’t had to buy any fabric at all. That goes for thread and backing as well. I do buy batting, as mom only left a “few” bags of it.

I have no idea how many quilts I’ve made since I began quilting in earnest at age 28, but I’ll guess at least 15 have been made with moms stash.

Finally, I am running low on fabric. Sandie is probably the only one who will be surprised by that. She was with me when we sorted moms stuff, and of all the things mom hoarded, fabric was by far the most collected. As a matter of fact at her funeral three owners of fabric stores came to tell me how much they will really miss her!

Today, I finished another quilt. It is mostly purple and blue and the design is… uhm… pretty. It’s a nice quilt, hardly perfect, but lovely and warm. It would make a nice snuggle blanket on the sofa. There are a few bunchy parts, and my hand-quilting is not as small or even as it used to be, but I like it.  And, I remember MaryLynn saying when she was writing her masters thesis, “The best thesis is a finished one.” I use this mindset with my dabbling hobbies, especially when I’m ready to move on to the next project.

I knew when I was sewing, that I would give this quilt away. I don’t know who will get it yet. I’m going to have a Facebook contest for it.

Part of me is nervous in that who ever wins it will see the problems with it, then again, my hope is they notice the joy in it.

If you aren’t on Facebook, here’s a head start and a little advanced time to think about entering to win. You can post your answer on this page if you want, or an email will work too.

What I’m going to ask is this. If you win this quilt, what nice thing would you do for someone else?

I need to figure out better wording, but you get the gist. Nice begets nice in a forward direction.

I have over 200 Facebook friends, and with other contests I’ve had, between 20 – 40 people usually enter the silly and fun thing. I rarely think about those contests much, but I’ve thought about this one a lot. I’m curious if more or less people will enter this contest if they know the prize is a quilt. I’m really curious to reconfirm how generous my friends are and wonder how they will answer the question. I’m super curious to see the pay it forward mindset in action. Mostly, I wonder who I will send my quilt to.

None of the quilts I make, will ever win a prize, but happily they sure can be a prize.

Ready… Go!

3 thoughts on “Contesttime!

  1. Kathy

    Well, yesterday I had a call from someone wanting me to cater a birthday dinner for around 30 people. In costing it out I’ve realized that what they want would be really expensive to do for 30 so had already decided that I would gift them this particular dinner but just for the two of them, after the birthday. So that is my answer. I will surprise two lovely folks with an Indian dinner for two.

    Reply
  2. Kathy

    Nancy’s pay it forward is amazing ~ what a gift to give and what a friend to even come up with the idea! Nice one Nancy!

    Reply

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