The Wendover Sewing Bee

My name is Clare, and I am a fabricoholic.

It all started last year, when I happened to see an advert for Deb's Modern Applique class on a lamp post in Prestwood (I frequent all the best places don't you know!)!

After an internal tussle - could a woman whose sewing experience was making fabric hearts and lavender bags possibly take on something huge like a quilt, I took the plunge, emailed Deb, and here I am, a year later, wondering what on earth I did before I found sewing and the Wendover Sewing Bee! As the wonderful Mrs Bobbins by Julia Icenogle says:

Going to the first applique class was scary - I was sitting with all these women who seemed to know exactly what they were doing and what all the terms meant, I honestly thought I had made a huge mistake.

So, after the class I looked at Deb's instructions in the peace and quiet of my own home (a big bar of chocolate and a cup of coffee helped!), and I read them again.  Slowly it made sense - I understood what I had to do, so I picked up my freezer paper, my fabric glue, chose the fabric and off I went!

Once I had started, I didn't want to stop! I followed up my Modern Applique class with the Simple Sampler one - and am so pleased with the finished quilt top for that one...the hand quilting is also becoming slightly addictive..

I am now fully in the grip of the sewing bug - some days I might not sew a stitch, some days I manage to sew a lot when my two boys have gone to bed, but do you know what, it doesn't matter, because I do it when I can and not having to worry about deadlines and timetables makes it all the more enjoyable!

I have also met some of the most incredible, warm, hilarious, life affirming women who make every class and Bee a pure delight - we all love to see each other's projects, completed quilts and blocks are greeted with 'oohs' and 'aahs' that we might not get at home, and you leave feeling that whatever else might be happening, for that brief period of time, all that mattered was you and your sewing.

Even my previous shopping trips have been replaced by a new adrenaline high - the search for the perfect fabric!  The thrill of knowing a certain collection is going to be released, tracking it down, working out if I don't have a takeaway coffee and buy a magazine for a couple of weeks, I can buy a bundle of fat quarters guilt free, and then lovingly looking at it, stroking it and putting it back into the cupboard as it is far too gorgeous for me to contemplate cutting!

Maybe this is why this cartoon makes me chuckle every time I see it...!

My name is Clare and I say with pride I am a fabricoholic!