Quilting

The joys of Quilting! For the past couple years I have been joining ladies coming from surrounding communities all day on Tuesdays to machine quilt. Westside Quilters has been meeting together for several years and I thank Della, our instructor, for her encouragement, fabric scraps, and You Can Do It attitude. With remodeling of our home, the majority of my first quilt was done on Tuesdays and they had a party for me when I finished. I was, and still am, given 100% cotton scraps to make my scrappy ***stars***. I love stars! There are so many variants in shapes and I like them. It took me 1-1/2 years to complete my first quilt and talk to everyone at the other tables during the process of selecting lights, darks, mediums and putting them together. My first choice: a California King size. I measured, cut, sewed, used the little hand ripper and resewed. When I finished the blocks, I sewed them together and added the borders, mitering the corners. I laid out the backing I had sewn together in three strips, putting the batting inside my sandwich, laid my quilt top and began pinning it all together. That was interesting, especially the next day. Wanting to learn the whole process from beginning to end, I quilted it myself and put on the binding. I thoroughly enjoyed the learning and assembling.

Sleeping Under the Stars

Now our California King guest bed upstairs has a welcoming quilt and I have begun my second ~*~ Queen size quilt. I am working on the designs I originally wanted to begin with: Judy Martin's The Block Book sampler. Now, not only am I measuring, I am using Math (yikes!) to compute the shapes. I am using her companion book, Judy Martin's Ultimate Rotary Cutting Reference. I am learning beyond joining colors. Here is a photo of the quilt that interested me in beginning quilting. I will be adding a third section in the middle, top to bottom inside, and continue the outer row of stars along the vertical sides.

[Maureen Lazenby, Fleet, Hampshire, UK ~*~ I call this quilt "It's All Judy Martin's Fault..." It won the prize for traditional patchwork at Quilts UK in 2000.]

This quilt makes me so happy!! All those colors and shapes. Now you know why I love ***s! I wrote to Maureen and she wrote back encouraging me to finish my first quilt before I started this one. Yay! Maureen! You knew what you were talking about.

I have enjoyed collecting my quilting stash. I have had fun going to the Quilt Shop Hops with my friend, Mary, and riding to buy fabric and out to lunch with our quilting group. I order quilting books and some fabric online. I am thoroughly enjoying all that goes along with quilting. Friends. Fun. Warmth of Quilts.