I have had the opportunity to work for a wonderful fabric company, Contemporary Cloth.  It is filled with beautiful quilting, home dec, and vintage fabrics.  I love seeing the color combinations of fabrics selected by quilters.  They have an amazing eye for color.

My quilting experience has been limited to t-shirt quilts.  These are fun to make, but pretty straight forward.  The biggest challenge I have is selecting a fabric for the sashing that will coordinate with the t-shirt colors.  I then machine-tack the quilt together.  It’s not really “quilted” (it also doesn’t need to be because I only have a top and fleece backing.)

So I’m always amazed when I see beautiful quilts that are really works of art:  the colors, the designs, the stitching.   I like to reflect on how something that was a necessity has been elevated to an art form.  Once, scraps were saved to be used for practical items.  Likewise, knitting has become part art form, part hobby, part therapy.

On this project, I performed my first “quilting.”  And I’m hooked!  Like knitting, I loved the repetitive nature of sewing the parallel rows of stitches.  (Well, they aren’t perfectly parallel…)

What is this little bit of quilted fabric?  It’s a potato bag!  I had to test it out for myself.  There are patterns all over the internet.  I followed these and they are a snap to make.  (If you use prequilted fabric it would be really fast, but then where’s the fun of stitching all those rows?)

I would like to say that I enjoyed my fluffy potato just like everyone describes, but instead, I have to report that I scorched the bag!  I guess I overcooked it….back to the drawing board.