My First Quilt

I've been sewing since I was in junior high school. I made many of my own clothes, all through school, and after I was married I continued to make clothes, as well as curtains and draperies for my house. I wanted to learn to quilt and my aunt invited me to join a group of ladies who got together one morning a week to work on their quilting and sewing projects. They were all grandmas, and I was in my late 20s, with young children at home, but they welcomed me with open arms. We would meet every Thursday morning, with each member taking a turn hosting, and would work on our projects, gossip, share family stories and have donuts and coffee. I started out making quilt blocks and making them into pillows, and after a few of those, I wanted to try a small quilt. I didn't have much money back then, and some of the ladies in the group donated fabrics for me to use. I wanted my first "real" quilt to be very traditional, so it is all hand pieced and hand quilted. I have to admit that it took me years to finish it off. Another baby intervened, and it got put away for a while, but eventually I did finish it. It's pretty amateurish, but I still treasure it.


I've made other quilts since then, but I soon learned to do my piecing by machine, so this is the only quilt I've ever done all by hand.

This is a quilt I made for my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary in 1992. I machine pieced it, but it is all hand quilted. It's the largest quilt I've ever done. When my mother-in-law passed away in 2005 my sisters-in-law gave it back to me to keep.



This is what I've been working on this week in my "sewing breaks." I just had to do something with the rest of my Pumpkins Gone Wild Charm pack and this is what I decided on. It's not quite finished, but it will be by Friday!! I think I'll hang it on the wall in my sewing room.



I did some online shopping last night at JoAnns and I bought some snuggle flannel that was on sale for $2.50 a yard to make lounge pants for the kids for Christmas. I usualy buy them each a pair but this year, since I'm sewing again, I'm going to make them. The Big Guy is an EMT and a volunteer firefighter and I bought some fabric with emergency vehicles on it for him. He's going to love it!! I also ordered a book on paper piecing mini-quilts, which I'm anxious to receive. I'm really enjoying doing the smaller quilts.

My sewing room is still a work in progress. I've been cleaning out and freecycling to make some more space in there. I gave away four bags of yarn that was given to me and I will never use to a lady who crochets afghans for charity, and some quilt panels that were my mothers, that I didn't especially care for. I found a bunch of empty picture frames from my mom's house, and some recipe cards so I freecycled those too. It's really a tiny room. It was my mom's room when she lived with us, and since she passed away, we've used it mostly for storage, so I have a way to go to get it all cleaned out and organized. But my work space is usable in the meantime, and I try to work on it a little bit every day. I'll get there eventually!!