This quilt is going on 15 years of UFO-ness. It’s the first quilt I ever worked on, though I’ll probably have made 50 by the time I get this one finished. It’s a sample quilt that I started at the tender age of 13. I was hand quilting it at the stroke of midnight 2000. Many of the quilting patterns have meaning. On one block I quilted bikes for the 7 day cycle trek we did for charity. The crazy quilt block has the handprints of the toddler I babysat so often she was like a little sister.
Once I got to college, though, the quilt languished (though whenever I find it in the closet I do take it out and refold it to keep away those permanent creases!). Hand quilting this bed sized quilt is no easy task, but when I took it out to show my friends a few months ago, they both said it was too pretty to stay a UFO, and Beth said that I should just make a promise to work on it for 4 hours a month or something like that to keep it moving forward. So…I decided that it would be my guild project. I’ll work on it every time we have a guild meeting, and eventually I might actually finish it!
Sadly, the stitches I am making now are wayyyy worse than these even small beautiful stitches of my teenage years!
Maybe I’ll get there again some day!
A.J. Dub - It is beautiful! I love the fabrics and colors. The quilting is awesome!
Melissa - Well, that Beth is a smart cookie. I love the idea of it being your guild quilt! 🙂 It is a beautiful quilt, and I’m glad you agreed with us that you shouldn’t let it languish in your closet.
Susanne - That hand stitch is such a cute and creative idea!!! I’m going to use it on my mothers day gifts!!!
Angela - but your quilting i saw on saturday was gorgeous!! I have tons of questions ie thought of to ask you about you quilt you were working on!!
My Swap Stuff » 3 Beans Studio - […] Traci talks about using the hand prints of a toddler as the quilting on one of the blocks. A lot of our Mother’s day gifts have involved hand prints, but usually with paint and porcelain. Only, even after a few years of doing that, it was getting a little old–or maybe a lot old. I had considered paint on fabric, but I didn’t want it to be too cheesy or too 80′s. (some how I associate hand prints on tee shirts and bags an 80′s thing). Anyway, Traci’s post gave me this idea. Simple hand towels. Every time our moms dry their hands, they get to touch the hands of their grandchildren. (AWWW!!!!) […]
Renee Johnson - LOVE this quilt, your first quilt. How can I get a pattern? LOVE the scrappy squares!!!