The Downside to Quilting no one tells you about

I am not a quilter - yet anyways - this is a craft I have wanted to master for a long time - I love fabrics and have serious quilt envy every time my boss completes another beautiful one, for five years I have had quilt envy.  I finally did it I decided to start a quilt.

I'm starting the cheater way - I bought a quilt kit for a log cabin quilt - which my boss says is one of the best beginner patterns.  The kit includes all the fabric pre cut and ironed!  All I have to do is sew it together.  It started out really smoothly, I was wizzing through these - I decided to sew the same fabrics for each block one after another - kind of assembly line production - that got a little boring.  Then I decided to complete one block at a time so I can have the satisfaction of looking at that beautiful completed block.  I can not believe how long it takes to sew one block - I worked on this most of the day Saturday and I have 2 1/2 quilt blocks done.  Good thing I picked a Christmas pattern - maybe I'll actually be done by then.

This is one of my boss's quilts she made for her husband - see why I have quilt envy?

Today I learned the downside to quilting - my neck and back have been bothering me since the weekend - I didn't put two and two together yet..... Went to the massage therapist and she said "have you been doing something where you're looking down a lot?, that's what it feels like these knots are from"  duh - quilting - oh yes she tells me, you need to take a break at least once an hour and do stretching exercises.  No one ever told me you could have quilting injuries - running injuries I understand - but quilting?????  On the plus side my massage therapist asked what kind of glut exercises I'm doing because they are really working :-).  (Guess I have to keep running - but very nice to know I'm getting results there)

Here's my first attempts (notice the puckering - not good my seam allowances are not all exactly 1/4")