How I started quilting

Each month on Block Lotto Sophie suggests a topic or question for the weekend update. This month's question is "How did you start quilting?"

I suspect I am like many who drifted in and out of quilting without actually creating a quilt. My mother is a quilter and I can distinctly recall many quilts that she started but not many that she finished. I still go into her studio and dig out the blue fan blocks that she started piecing by hand out of Laura Ashley prints - I think I was 7 when she started that one.

My story is much the same. I have always sewn and done crafts since I was taught to use a sewing machine at age 9. I had a part time job at Joanne's while in university and made many of my clothes. I started my first quilt when I went to stay with my parents while they were living in Cyprus - this was when I was 21. I was bored out of my mind and thought it would be a good activity to make a quilt (between getting sunburned at the beach and hanging out with the Marine guards from the embassy). I drafted a block using graph paper and cut out the templates using plastic. I bought some fabric locally and stole some from my mother's stash. I chose yellow and blue - I seemed to find a lot of them and they were my university colours.

I managed to make about 4 of these blocks and the fabrics, templates, and finished blocks followed me back to the USA, around the country, and eventually to New Zealand.

Meanwhile, I had started and finished my first quilt in 2010. This one for my bedroom to go with the new wallpaper that I had put on the panels behind my bed. Although this is my first finished quilt, it is not the first I started, so it only half counts as my first.

At about the same time, a week before my cousin was coming to visit, I tried to clear out the closet of the guest room. I found 5 unfinished quilts - some of them baby quilts for children ready to go off to college. I vowed to get them all finished in the year.

November 2010 was when I finished that first started quilt. I thought the colour scheme was ghastly, so I added some green to the mix. Those first blocks were terrible too, but I was determined to keep them. The finished quilt is queen sized and is made up of 25 12" blocks. I did not know how to speed piece the HST so each triangle was cut and sewn in a pair (I have learned much since then).

The one pink star was to introduce the pink from the backing fabric.

Although my tastes have changed, I love this quilt. It lives at our beach house and I am happy to see it every time we are there. Must be time for another visit (if this horrible rain ever stops).