I am not a Quilter, but I Play One in the Local Mini Group

I have a friend who purports to believe the above statement. Sarah keeps insisting that she really isn't a quilter, just a novice at the art and craft of joining pieces of fabric together.

Sarah came to our mini group off and on for at least six years, and when she moved to a town some distance away, she joined a nearby group in the vicinity. In fact, before she left, I bought her a tee shirt that read: “You know You Are a Quilter when you fondle fabric, when you have threads hanging off your blouse,” and so on. Another friend who would see her more often than I said that Sarah kept insisting that she was not yet a quilter.

Our local fabric shop holds a Christmas contest every year and quilters submit small holiday wall hangings, and the store’s patrons then vote for the one they like the best. The winner gets a gift certificate to be used in the quilt shop. You will never guess who won last year’s contest. Sarah, who is not a quilter.

I recently ran into Sarah at a local quilt show. She had just finished a quilting class, her first, she told me. She was toting a bag full of fabric that she’d bought in anticipation of another class she was going to take the following day. Looked to me like Sarah was indeed a quilter.

The ultimate proof came when I was looking through the quilt show’s catalogue after the show had closed. Listed under Wall Hangings was a quilt with Sarah’s name beside it. Somehow I had missed it when I had viewed the quilts, but there it was, a watercolor quilt she called My Flower Garden. The accompanying comment was, “I can’t paint so I decided I could piece a water color garden.” Sarah may not be a painter, but she is indeed a quilter, no matter what she may think.

©2004 Patricia Littlefield
www.theQuilterCommunity.com