Once a sorority girl,
always a sorority girl! It was the good ol’ college days at Southwest
Missouri State University and the memorable years of cramped living in the Alpha
Delta Pi house on Elm Street where I learned the valuable ‘glue gun skills’ I
have forever appreciated. My days as
Spirit Chair for ADPi developed my organizational, creative and artistic skills
as I presented sisters with “Shinin’ Diamonds” for their outstanding
achievements during our weekly meetings.
Always creative, my college sorority was a great place to channel that
energy into craft time at the looney bin!
I remember once going to Mardi Gras and coming back with bags of cheap
beads and glue gunning them to everything in sight…I made bead covered picture
frames, mirrors and even a trash can! Fast
forward today to post graduate life and I’ve gone through phases of cross-stitch,
painted stained glass, dress making (I could only do just one pattern though)
and scrapbooking.
Most recently, this
super ambitious sorority girl is channeling her ‘glue gun skills’ and is
learning how to quilt. In 2008, my
interest was first peeked in quilting after I did a news story that took me to
the Eddie Mae Herron Center in Pocahontas, Arkansas. There, my photographer and I shot video of a ‘Freedom
Quilt’ that was used by slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad to the
North. Every block on the quilt served
as part of a map that led the slaves to freedom. House slaves would clean the quilts and hang
them on the front porches to dry and as the escaped slaves traveled through,
they would know where to go. The quilt
was beautiful and the concept was amazing to me!
It wasn’t until we
were in Tupelo before I finally took a quilting class. Just by chance I found a “Beginner’s Quilting
Class” at Hobby Lobby and spent every Monday night the youngest of about 10
women. (Where are the Hobby Lobby’s up
here?) Our move to New York left me a few classes short of finishing my
project, so I’m not real versed on much past doing the topper. Fortunately, my mom found a woman in Mt.
View, Arkansas that machine stitched the top for only $20! Imagine my surprise when my mom entered it for
me in the Butler County Fair in Poplar Bluff, Missouri and it won third place
overall in the miniature quilt division!
Third place overall?!?
If I had to say I had
one regret in life, it would be not taking Home Economics when I was in high
school. I could just kick myself for
passing on that class. To this day, it still
takes me forever to remember which is bigger, the tablespoon or the teaspoon
and I usually call my mom for the majority of my cooking and sewing questions (fortunately
she has a Masters in Home Economics, University of Arkansas ’74). One of the hardest parts about moving to New
York is being so far from my family in Southeast Missouri.
So when my mom was
scheduled for a business meeting in Portland, Maine, she arranged to stop by
and see us before heading back home to the Heartland. That meant getting the guest room ready would
be a challenge! The sorority girl in me
decided rather than buy new bedding, I’d just make it! (That white ribbon was going straight to my
head when I cooked up this idea!) My
apologies to any other quilters in the Clifton Park area, I was the person with
all the books on quilting checked out from the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Library
for the last two months. Even with yards
and yards and yards of fabric, I still had to go back for more after I totally
jacked up half of the quilt…apparently being off a quarter of an inch is a big deal. Thank goodness for those coupons at Jo-Anns!
I ended up making a
duvet cover for the guest bedroom. One
(very complicated) side was the pattern ‘Blue Lagoon’ taken from the book Jelly Roll Quilts and the other side was
an easy 9.5″ x 9.5″ block
pattern.
My version of “Blue Lagoon” in Black
The easy side!
My little stint as Betsy Ross
also produced a throw pillow, which turned way cuter than I would have ever
guessed!
No throwing of this pillow please!
I couldn’t get the matching
shams done before my mom got here, but there are tentative plans for those in
the future and maybe some curtains
too, but we’ll see what happens. I
figure we’ll probably be snowed in all winter and have plenty of time to get to
all of that! Of course, this sorority
girl might be using her ‘glue gun skills’ for a new project by then…who knows?
