I honestly can't ever remember my first quilt. I was in elementary school when I started sewing squares together and embriodering on my bell bottoms (a beach scene!). My first of everything was usually given to my mother. My first cross stitch, pencil drawing, quilling, writing, & quilting. She has a whole wall of them.
Most everything I make is given away. Recently, my brother and his family were downsizing and had a huge yard sale and one of the first wall hangings I had made was in the sale (has to be 20 years old), I bought it back and gave it to a friend of mine. It was a Lone Star done in shapes of purple. I noticed that it puckered in the center were all the points came together. Which was okay since something can be sat on it or hung stretched out. I see a lot of puckers in this and the purple has faded.
My current project, which has actually been a project of some 10 years now and very close to be finished is a Log Cabin in the barn raising pattern. I machine pieced each block and then hand pieced the blocks together and have been hand quilting this king size quilt. In the dark areas I have 1 inch grides. The back is beautiful, if I do say so myself.
What have I learned? I want to do too much. I don't have time to do all I want to do. I want to quilt like my grandmother did, slow and easy, savoring each stitch. I want my quilts to be cherished, so it's okay if I see them on the floor with babies crawling on them or on the beach for a family picnic or as a tent in the living room.
You can never have too many scraps or too many patterns. Never promise to work up the patterns you have before you buy a new one. Always...always...touch the material.
