The Quilt Story

I do also make quilts, though it has been a little while since my last one.

It started with some Vintage fabric found in my mothers basement.


Wait, actually it started before that with a book from about 1970 obtained from an estate sale. (we went though a phase of avidly attending these and collecting all kinds of 'things').
It is a book all about quilting, how to do it, the different styles, giving everything from the typical bed sizes to the techniques for many different kinds of quilts.Bored one evening I read it and thought - I might be able to actuallly do this.



Then came the Vintage fabric from the basement. I decided to keep some when cleaning out Mom's basement and eventually it hit me - this fabric would make a nice quilt.


So, right around Thanksgiving 2008, I decided to go for it. Silly me I thought I could finish it by Christmas and give it as a nice gift. I decided for the recipient a Queen size would be fine, so measured my own comforter (on a Queen sized bed) and went for that size.


I would later find out, when I was just about finished with it and looking for a way to box it up to give it, we actually had an oversized KING comforter! OMG what was I thinking ? ('sure I can make a quilt in just over a month!! sure make it big!!! what, was I crazy???)

Of course, I went through the 'learning pains' with any new project, such as:

• -different sizes squares (the biggest 'no-no' in quilting!),
• -the ah-ha moment in the store when the nice lady in the fabric department suggesting using a sheet for the backing instead of sewing 3 different pieces of fabric together,
• -that the 'easier' backing was not quite big enough for the massive front I had made due to not double checking sizes (see above),
• -the batting was not thick enough for what I wanted
• -you should only use a needle for 8-10 projects?? (I think my needle was at least 8 years old) no wonder it broke.
• Normally it takes several months to make a quilt? (Ut oh, what else could we get them for Christmas at this point?)

In the end, it turned out better than I thought it would! And I finished it a day or two before Christmas! That left time to add the two pillows with some of the leftover fabrics. (My daughter helped with that, bless her!)

The gift was very warmly accepted, and promptly put up for safe keeping, not used, but safely on display only.

(I actually made it for them to take it on their cross country RV road trip because I didn't think it would turn out very nice....)

At lease now I can say my first quilt is now safely in the proud company of a collection of fine arts, crafts and antiquities.


My next quilt I knew would be heavily used. This one would be for my husband who hates the cold, and is cold all the time. This one would definatley keep him warm on those cold winter nights. More on that in next post.