Hi friends, Thank you so much for the warm welcome! I am as excited as you are to watch Make+Do come to life. I think we're going to have lots of fun together. One thing that I'm really enjoying is reading your comments and learning about the different kinds of crafters out there. Sure enough, we've got experienced crafters like Judi, who's been knitting (and more) for over 50 years; Jills-of-all-trades like Indiana and Rita; and relative novices like KLMusic, who admits that craft-wise, she sometimes bites off more than she can chew. I've certainly been in those shoes. Many years ago, when I was still in high school, the Jewel-Box quilt pattern in an issue of Canadian Living caught my eye. Thanks to my Mum, I was handy enough with a needle and thread, but I was nowhere near skilled enough to turn out a quilt! I ripped the pages out of the magazine, though, and held on to them, thinking that one day, I'd be ready... Almost 10 years later, my parents gave me a sewing machine for my birthday, and I knew exactly what my first project would be – that quilt! Ever the optimist, I told everyone I'd be finished by Easter. Except that my birthday is at the very end of January, and Easter was early that year. And did I mention that I'd ambitiously chosen to make a double-size quilt, and that, living as I did then in rural Nova Scotia, the nearest fabric store was almost an hour's drive away? Sure enough, I spent that Easter weekend sitting at the sewing machine. And I kept sewing, and sewing, and sewing. Once the top was together and I had the quilt sandwiched, I decided I'd teach myself to hand-quilt. It seemed that any time I had a few spare minutes, I was sitting down to add a few more stitches. In the end, it took me three years (almost to the day) to finish that quilt. It wasn't the only quilt I made during that time, but it's the only one I kept. I learned so much – about sewing and quilting, sure, but also about myself – that I don't think I could ever part with it. Talk about a labour of love. Do you have a favourite Canadian Living craft project, or a story about your own crafty labour of love? I'd love to read about it in the comments. (There's still some time to enter to win that copy of Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing! Just leave a comment on my first post by Friday, April 24, at 5 p.m., and I'll choose a winner on Monday.)