Not Quitting

I got several nice notes from people after my last blog entry so I want to make it clear that I am not going to quit quilting. I already have several ideas percolating in my brain.  But sometimes it seems both weird and disheartening. I had a friend visiting last week and I showed her all the quilts that usually stay on the guest room bed, the quilts I had to move so she could sleep there. I estimate my average time spent on a quilt is about 500 hours. If I charged even $10 an hour my quilts would be $5000 which is so unrealistic as to be ludicrous but if I charged less than that I would be insulting myself. So I give my quilts away either to friends or to charity auctions. I am lucky enough not to need income from my addiction. My quilts are beautiful but they aren't innovative--they are deliberately old-fashioned and often reproductions of famous quilts made with exacting care as to fabrics and mostly entirely by hand. I am a process person not a product person. There is no way I can stop quilting even after two elbow surgeries and two thumb surgeries. But no one but my very limited number of readers ever sees them. I think quilt shows are fine but not for me and these days not for the type of quilt I make.