I am continually amazed by the wealth of information, companionship and just plain cool stuff that can be found on the internet. For example, just today I have:

• Learned how to sew a french seam from Stardust Shoes
• Watched videos on Youtube of free motion machine quilting (soon enough I'll get the courage, i.e. naive ambition, to take the plunge)
• Learned a fabulous way to fold my fabric uniformly from Happy Zombie (which has given me the itch to go out and buy bins and transform the disaster that is my fabric stash)

And of course, the countless quilt patterns and tutorials from crafty bloggers and endless Flickr photo streams of beautiful stitchery that have given me so much inspiration.

When I first began sewing a little over two years ago, it was with a borrowed machine from my mom that was older than me, and I had no clue what I was doing. She showed me how to thread the needle, change a bobbin and turn it on. And from there said, "Sorry honey, all I ever did with it was sew your Girl Scout patches onto your vest!"

No one in my family sews. At least, no one that I lived closer than a thousand miles to growing up that could have taught me. So I was going into it completely blind. I started out by making a patchwork blanket with some scraps of fabric I had left over from a scrapbooking project. And some cut up flannel pajama pants. I was 8 months pregnant and bored out of my mind, and thought I could make a simple blanket. It wasn't very good, and I didn't do anything right (it wasn't quilted or hand-tacked at all, I used the cheap bagged polyester batting and the binding was a mess). But I was so damn proud of that thing.

Since then, my bored curiosity has grown into a profiting business (never mind that all the profit goes to buying more fabric) and a plethora of ideas and inspiration. Seriously, I have more projects on my "some day I'll make this!" list than I have hairs on my head. It's been both a blessing and a curse. But a fun curse.

People tell me all the time that I'm "so talented!" and "so creative" and just "so!" But really, if it weren't for the wonderful and amazing talent of all the crafty goddesses in blog land and beyond, I'd still be cutting squares with a 6x6 piece of plywood as a template, tracing it with a ball-point pen. (Yes, I really did that. Told you I had no idea what I was doing.)

So I guess this is my thanks to all of you who have inspired, taught and amazed me with your awesomeness. There are a handful of sewing blogs in my blogroll on the side bar, but I find new ones every day that I learn something from so I'll try to post them every now and then to spread the crafty love.

Eventually I'll start posting my own ideas and techniques, if I can ever get past the fear that no one will like what I have to say or find it useful. I get lots of reassurance in the form of customer satisfaction, but still, the grass is always greener, you know? It's like high school all over again, trying to get in with the popular girls and hoping they don't notice that you haven't started shaving your legs yet and still wear a retainer. At least in this case, the popular girls are willing to share their secrets.