First Quilt

Updated 3/2017 -- all links (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active. and it was easier than checking each one.

I made my first quilt while still in high school, then didn’t do much more until about twenty years ago. I did a few off and on through the years as friends had babies, but I really begin quilting twenty years ago when I opened my practice. It saved my sanity when the first weeks (and some since) were so slow, the phone didn’t seem to ring, etc.

I gave my first quilt to my best friend from high school Blyson’s daughter Amanda years ago. Amanda is graduating from high school this spring. I “hounded” Blyson into sending photos of the quilt to me.

My first quilt was made using some cottons and some cotton blends. It used some scraps left over from some clothes I had made and worn. The bee fabric was a shirt. The ginghams were used to make a blouse. The pastels had made up a block color dress along with the one of some printed fabric. The dress had dolman sleeves.

Blyson’s email states the quilt measures 42 in X 104 in, but that doesn’t compute with me. I remember the quilt being square (as I was and am) and the photo looks like it was square. It appears to measure 19 blocks horizontally and vertically. Each block (I think) is 2.5 in which means the finished quilt is 47.5 in.

I made the quilt in 1974 at age 16. Each block was cut out by hand. These days I use a rotary cutter. Don’t know if I machine pieced it or not, but I do know I did not bind it. I “finished” the edges by literally sewing the three layers together around the edges, leaving a section open to turn it. I then hand closed the section and “top-stitched” around the edges. I “tied” the corners of each square. The things I have learned since then!

I embroidered names of classmates with nicknames on the pastel squares, as well as favorite classes/activities. This one features the mechanical drawing class I took with my friend Pam (who is now a favorite teacher of English at Vilonia). The two of us sat in the back of Mr. Park’s 10th grade geometry class, the only two taking mechanical drawing.

This one features chemistry also taught by Mr. Park. Our school was so small that to have enough students, the class included both junior and senior students. This was also the case with physics. As a result I and many of my classmates feel close to the class above us (1974) and the one behind us (1976).

This one features basketball. I loved being on the basketball team. I was mostly a bench warmer, but I loved it. I even now will occasionally get out in my backyard and shoot baskets. Such great memories.

I’ve submitted this quilt as part of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Spring 2010.