Hello all, Mary Ellen here.

If you are of a certain age, that phrase has an entirely different meaning to you than it will in this post. I spent some time this morning looking around on Pinterest for NY Beauty block quilting designs. Didn’t find what I was looking for, but ran across this series of posts instead. Click here. I took the pledge this morning.

I am often asked questions by my quilting students which have answers all boiling down to one simple fact. I make my quilts to be used; “for keeps” is the phrase the author uses. I would rather have them used up, worn out, stained with grape jelly, or skidded with green grass and red dirt stains than have them be still in pristine condition 20 years from now. That is why I prewash my fabrics (baby skin is so sensitive to chemicals in fabric and I don’t want the reds in the pattern to migrate onto any of the others), why I am very particular about straight grain along the outer edges of the quilt (no wavy fluted edges on quilts for me, unless I did it on purpose for a girly girl), and why I machine stitch most of my bindings (pulling the quilt up over your shoulders on a cold winter night puts a lot of stress on the seams.)

How about you? Are you making your quilts for keeps?