The Way Back Machine

I'm quilting away on my Spring Fling Round Robin and will post when it is done, and in the meantime I offer a picture of this, my first quilt.

In 1975, I met Leah Curling at a Newcomers Club meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado. I'd always wanted to learn to quilt, and there she was hand piecing. Well I was on her like the proverbial duck on a Junebug and the rest is history. She mentored me and pointed me in the direction of Beth Gutcheon's Perfect Patchwork Primer, still a great book for anyone who wants to learn to quilt the old fashioned way.

This pattern is called Time and Tide and came from an issue of Quilters' Newsletter Magazine. I ordered the fabric from Sears Roebuck in order to get 100% cotton. The two prints are just different colorways of the same fabric and I think the fabric was about $1.50 a yard or less. I had pieced this quilt and hand quilted it in a frame built by my husband's co-worker.

I wish I could say that I loved this quilt, but I'm really not wild about the colors and fabrics. I do love the labor I put into this quilt. Being hand pieced just the way Grandma did, I traced templates of each and every piece and cut them out individually. My quilting template for the border was also good-old-style cardboard.

Perhaps tomorrow, a picture of my last Sew-a-Row or the Spring Fling....