The thing with patchwork and quilting

Can you believe it? I finally got some pies together!!! I am strangely excited by this turn of events and have done a little dance in the hallway even. It is starting to look like a quilt and even starting to feel like a quilt. I am really crazy for fabric, I just love the stuff. (Yeah, I know this isn't news to anyone, but go with it.) Fabric shops are my best thing. I love to touch fabric, drape fabric.......are you getting this? Fabric is good. Really good. But then you add patchwork to the equation. You get some really good fabric and you cut it into little pieces. Common sense here tells me that if I start with something good, then cut it into little pieces I'm on the wrong track. It's not good. But with patchwork it is good. You take your little pieces and arrange them, then rearrange them and finally you start to sew them together. Sometimes by hand. Sometimes with a machine. You work on those little pieces until they are one piece of fabric again. One piece of fabric. Like it was before. And not like it was before. Patchworked fabric is better. It feels better. Drapes better. Looks better. It's almost as if patchwork is a magnifier.

• fabric + patchwork = much more than you started out with

Can you tell I have been helping Miss 13 with her maths and science homework? Then you take your patchworked fabric and get the quilting process going. Same thing. Quilting is another of those magical magnifiers. So you end up with a quilt that looks and feels more than two times better than the sum of it's parts. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why I quilt. Cause everyone needs a little magic in their life! This is one fifth of the pies together. I actually put the first tart together today and plan to get them attatched to my better than fabric fabric over the next few days. C'mon magic!!!