A Seasonal Quilter

I've been thinking about this for the past week and I've decided that it's weird. *grin* I absolutely adore quilting. I love quilting. I love sewing fabric together, I love picking it out and cutting it up. I detest ironing (or pressing), but will spend however long it takes to get that new fabric pressed and ready to be put in my stash. I also love watching new color combinations come together to make a beautiful quilt. So, here comes the weird part.

I've decided that I'm a seasonal quilter. I prefer quilting during the fall and the winter. Oddly enough, in the spring and summer, I prefer knitting. Oh, on cooler days, I do drag out my quilting again and move a little further on whatever I was working on before the heat hit, but I usually just knit. I don't know. Maybe it's a female internal thing. One year during the summer, I knitted all of my children and the neighbor's children new scarves for the winter. Last year, I tackled slippers for the boys and myself. I haven't quite figured out how to do more 'difficult' things. I consider myself a "hobby knitter" and a "serious quilter." Therefore, all my 'snazzy' skills are in quilting, not knitting. *smile*

I will admit that my knitting and quilting will mix and match for awhile. I'll knit until I drop and then switch back to quilting for awhile. I'll quilt for a week or two and then switch back to knitting again. All I do know is that I love to keep my hands busy. If I'm just sitting there, whether it be at one of my sons' practices or watching TV, I hate the wasted time if my hands aren't busy. However, if I'm quilting (hand work usually) or knitting, then I feel like the time has been productive. That and it also helps keep me from biting my nails. *grin*

I prefer taking knitting with me outside. We can have the most horrendous winds around here, especially in the spring. Mind you, I don't think you can do anything in 30 mph winds, but even in the lighter breezes you can't really piece or applique very well. Yarn holds up much better to that than does thread.

So! What am I going to make this year during the summer? Well. I have discovered that I dislike sewing or quilting for sale. I don't like to sell my quilts or anything of that nature. However, I did just discover that I don't mind knitting for money. *grin* Just small stuff that I can finish easily. I probably don't mind the idea of selling my knitting because I have NO clue what to do with any of the small things I make. LOL It then leads to indecision because I don't know what I'm even going to make. Now, my acrylic yarn is going to make little squares for wounded soldier afghans. Yesterday, I just bought a lot of pure 100% cotton yarn (I adore cotton. Must be the quilter in me. *grin*) to create kitchen sets to sell at a craft sale closer to Christmas. I'm not sure how many I'll get made, but I'm hoping for a minimum of 3 sets. I know, I know. That doesn't seem like a whole lot. However, we are moving in late August to mid September. I'm just trying to keep my goals reasonable. Besides, each kitchen 'set' includes a dish towel and 2 dishcloths. All the extra cotton I have left over from creating the sets will then be used to make extra dishcloths.

With that, I'm going to head on out. Instead of knitting or quilting, I bought some little pots and seeds yesterday. The boys and I are going to go plant them soon and watch them grow. I just hope I can convince the boys to just look at them and not pick the little plants as they come up. *grin*

Have a great day!