Week #17, Angelina McKenna

Hey everyone!

I'm Angelina and I'll be your hostess this week on 52 quilters. Can I start by saying how excited I am to be a part of this project? I am super excited to be a part of it. I hope I can keep you interested in my little corner of the world.

My little corner of the world is currently Northern California. Sacramento to be exact. I've lived here for nearly 3 years and I love exploring this area and learning about the ways of Californians. (California could really be its own country, let's just put that out there.) I'm from Washington state originally and am truly a Pacific Northwest girl at heart. You can keep your 90 degree days, I like my sunshine around 70 degrees with a side of Mount Rainier thank you very much.

So who am I? I'm a woman, a creative, an over-thinker, a dreamer, a wife, a sister, a friend, and an oldest daughter. I'm the person who drives really slow everywhere because I'm distracted looking at the patterns of birds in flight. I eat chocolate whenever I crave it because duh, that chocolate isn't going to enjoy itself. I love traveling because I love seeing how other people live. It makes me consider my own footprint on this Earth. I am a quoter of silly movies and a terrible singer of songs but I do it anyway. I'm a giver, not a taker. I am curious. I get ideas in my head and I have to make them...like right now! I like learning how things are made. I like making things myself.

What do I do? I do a little of everything. I grew up with a family who makes. My mother made clothes, my grandmother quilts, my grandfather does woodworking. I learned to do crochet and basic sewing at an early age. I went to college to be an "artist" and left after a year. I later finished 2 Associates degrees in Art and Digital Media. I have dabbled in drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture,  and graphic design. My big creative outlet now is sewing and quilting. After a lay off last year I decided I needed to recommit to learning to sew. That I would learn it with more patience and apply my art/design skills in this new media. It has been quite an adventure and I couldn't have done it without Instagram. Being active on IG is like a having an instant quilt guild. In fact I have theorized that IG actually stands for "insta-guild".

I quilt because I can. I enjoy the process of making things. I like having a "final product". In my past life (pre-layoff)  I was a Baker and I took a lot of satisfaction in having these beautiful finished cakes that made people smile. I love that aspect of quilting too! I like taking a bunch of pieces and making them a whole. I like seeing what my brain, my eyes, my hands, and feet are capable of. I live with a chronic illness that has disabled me before and will likely disable me again. That threat is always in my mind and I am determined to enjoy as many things as possible with whatever time I have and the abilities I have.

You can find me normally on Instagram as @weenchaweena. I constantly post about what sewing projects I'm working on, what I'm drinking, and what the weather is like. It's really become a micro-blog about my creative life.  You can catch more of me on @52quilters and @weenchaweena this week as well as this blog where I will be talking about finding inspiration and learning to long arm quilt later this week.

Post by Angelina - Week #17:   I'm Angelina, 33, and living in sunny California but I'm a Pacific Northwest girl at heart. I grew up sewing with my Mother and Grandmother but really started focusing on sewing a year ago. When I'm not sewing I like traveling, a nice glass of Barbera, and thinking about sewing some more. You can find me shamelessly overgramming at @weenchaweena on Instagram.