My Husband's Quilting suggestions....

Who knew?!? He actually had some good suggestions!

Let me first give you a little background on my husband. 

He's a "man's man".

He flies in an airplane for a living. He hunts. He fishes. He rides motorcycles. He shoots guns. He watches and plays most all sports. He breaks bones in his body. He's just your typical guy...the kind of guy with absolutely no feminine side to him. (poor guy, and he lives with 3 girls and a female dog!)

Anyway, he tolerates my fabric and quilting obsession. I was a little worried with this last move we made. See, he was in Afghanistan for about 8 months and I think I used fabric as my therapy. Once we moved, he actually SAW all the fabric. He asked me, "So, what do you think you spend a month on fabric? $1,000 per month?" I replied, "NO WAY!" (really I don't! I don't know what I spend but I do know it's not that much!) Anyway, he's great about it and makes it a joke. Which I love because sometimes I feel a little guilty about how much fabric I have and the fact that I don't have any income coming in. But he knows my job being a stay at home mom is rough when he is gone so much, and this is really my only hobby. 

Ok, let me get back on track here....

I love Cathedral Windows Quilts. I've always wanted to make one and was always intimidated and thought I couldn't do it. I received a coupon via email from Joann's for 60% off a single cut of fabric. I thought it'd be a good time to get some muslin for one and attempt it. I bought 6 yards. (come to find out later, for the size I want to make I need 20.5 yards!! OOPS!) oh well, it'll get me started anyway!

So I cut some white, cut some charms, and start ironing away. Boy is it a lot of work.

 My whole reason for wanting to make a Cathedral Windows quilt is because at night after the kids go to bed, I don't sew. That's when hubby and I watch TV together. We DVR a ton of shows and it's the only time for us to watch them. I usually sit on one couch and play on the computer checking blogs, flickr, pinterest, facebook, etc, etc. Well it's ridiculous. I think about the hours I sit on this damn computer and I could be sewing something instead. For whatever reason, I don't like to quilt, sew on my machine, cut fabric etc. at night. That's what I like to do during the day.  So hence me coming up with starting a Cathedral Windows quilt. I can sit here and watch TV and hand stitch my little windows into the quilt. 

I sit down to start and say to him, "you know what, if I just machine stitched all these, it would be so much faster." He replies, "Isn't that defeating the purpose though? You aren't in a rush. Take your time and enjoy it." 

Wow....he was so right! I know most of the time, all my jabbering about fabrics and quilts goes in one ear and out the other with him. He could care less. I know when I start talking about quilts, fabrics and blogs, he probably says to himself, "oh gosh, how long is she going to go on about this crap."

So I start hand stitching with regular thread. I don't like it. Then I try stitching with some perle cotton thread and I'm just not sure. I can't figure out how the stitching "is suppose to be." So again, I ask his opinion. "Which one do you like better? The one with the thread you can barely see? or the one with the thicker thread that is pretty visible?" He says, "The thicker thread, obviously! You aren't going to do all that hand sewing and then not even be able to see the quilting! I mean, if you're going to hand quilt this whole thing, don't you want the stitches to show?" 

YES!!! He was so right! I couldn't believe I didn't come up with any of his conclusions on this quilt!

So with every tedious step on constructing this quilt, I am learning to really appreciate every moment of it!