quiltoholics

Thea — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:57:00 GMT

Quiltoholics - What are quiltoholics... I started this thread in forums as a spoof. I have always told my friends that I was a quiltoholic - but unlike being an alcoholic there is nothing wrong with being a quiltoholic. It is not a disease or something bad. I think quilting gave purpose to my life when I retired from working. I am not the type of person that can sit and do nothing all day long - I have to feel productive. Since I was a child, I have been very creative. I loved to draw and make things. I tried every craft out there. Some I probably could have worked on harder... like painting pictures...but I didn't really get into it. I loved knitting and crocheting but although I still knit and crochet I don't get as much pleasure from it as I do from quilting. When I found quilting, I was so hooked. I love making quilts and getting better at it. I love learning new styles of cutting and sewing the fabric back together. I want to be the best I can be at it. I live and dream quilting - when I read of a new technique I want to know all about it. I read all about all the advancements and how people make this craft of mine better. I truly am impressed with quilters as they are such a loving caring group of people that amaze me with their generosity. And you can make so many different kinds of quilts. That to me is just so wonderful. We get people from all walks of life that are quilters.

The following is my idea of what a meeting of Quiltoholics should be like:

Gavel Gavel Gavel

Please hold the noise down - ladies and gentlemen - we would like to bring this meeting of our Quiltoholics chapter to order...

We thank you all for attending this afternoon...We would like to welcome our members and any guests that are with us today. After our business meeting, we would like any and all new members to stand and introduce themselves.

Please remember ladies and gents that although we are proud of being a quiltoholic that everything spoken here is to be kept within these walls… Some of our members are still in the closet! We are here to assist the members of this chapter in becoming the best quilter that she or he wants to be. Quilts are made with love for the recipients who get them. We want to give you support in making the best quilt that you can make.

We have a refreshment tray set up in the back - lots of chocolates, coffee, tea, soft drinks, water, and lattes. !

Today

We hope that our steps will help you and that you will proudly go forth from this meeting with the knowledge that it is OKAY to be a quiltoholic. Here are our 12 steps.

1) Admitting that you are a quiltoholic

2) Bowing to a Quilt Deva

3) Your need of a sponsor to help you with your quilting life - a sponsor is someone who can help you with a specific part of your quilting... egs being a piecer, a person who appliques, a person who does hand piecing, machine quiting, long arm quilting etc.

4) To search through your quilting life and write down in your own words your life as a quilter... what your goals are, what you have learned, what you want to do with your quilts.

5) Sharing your love of quilting with someone else... a great enterprise to be done at every opportunity..(remember this is a great thing)

6) Owning up to your mistakes and showing how you have either hid the mistake or fixed the mistake and what you learned from the mistake that will help all future quiltoholics to realize that you weren't and aren't perfect that mistakes are made and can be overcome.

7) Realizing that your Quilt Diva is there to teach you and give you assistance with any of the questions that might arise in your quilting life.

8) Take an inventory of your magazines – books – patterns – fabric ( including scraps)…

9) Taking an inventory of your UFOs.

10) Continuing to take stock in what you have learned in your quilting life. Strive to be better tomorrow then you are today.

11) Lift yourself up –invite a higher power into your quilting world. This could be a favorite instructor – a speaker at your guild meeting, a speaker at a retreat or quilt show… we need to step out of our comfortable quilty lives and try something new. So get out there and explore.

12) Having had an awakening that you are a quiltoholic, you will now take this message to all who are or might be candidates; to encourage them to stand up and shout that they are a quiltoholic to.

Our business meeting has now come to a close. We invite each of you to stand and acknowledge your awareness that you are a quiltoholic. We send you forth in this knowledge and ask you to come back when you are in need of support. We hope that you will go forth and start a chapter of Quiltoholics in your town or city. We will be holding Weekly meetings to get together to discuss quilting issues, to give help and assistance to all who might need it, to send forth new and wonderful quiltoholics every chance we get.

We hope to see you here again – We appreciate each and everyone of you that have come and shared your valuable time with us! Thank you. We hope that you have many many warm and quilty days to come and send out warm quilty hugz to all. We now conclude the meeting and turn it over to you for a show and share segment…

I think of Quiltoholics as a wondeful group of people who get together to support those around them - to impart their knowledge in any way that they can. Women and Men who come together to make quilts, talk about the quilting world and to bring the love of quilts to all who could use a loving lift. I thank all those that participated on the forum and hope that somehow I might have brought some sunshine into someones life as much as the sunshine has been brought into my life by quilts.

Thea's quilting trials and tribulations. : sponsors, quiltoholics

quiltoholics