My Quilt

Sunny mornings are so lovely!

I'm thankful for all the rain we've had lately, but it's so nice to see a clear blue sky today. Saturdays are always busy around here, and I've gotten a head start already, by hanging out a load of towels to dry on the line.

I don't think anyone else in our neighborhood was outdoors yet. There was a noticeable absence of human-created sounds, except for the distant highway. Birds were scolding each other in a large tree several yards away, and our sweet dog, Midnight, was coming out of her doghouse and making "waking up" sounds. I could see our three rabbits wiggling their noses, and rattling the doors of their cages, thinking that I had come to feed them.

The combination of dewy grass, damp towels, smooth clothespins, and a faint breeze made my sense of touch come alive. I could smell someone's breakfast cooking - I think it was sausage. And so many other smells invaded my brain too. And down at the end of our yard, I could almost see our garden soaking in the sunshine and dew.

All in all, it's wonderful to be outdoors in the morning.

Now that I've spilled a little of my enthusiasm out, let me get to the real topic of this post.

I finally have a picture of my own quilt to show you. This is the one I displayed at the quilt show:

It is the first quilt I ever made. I started it on my 16th birthday. Mom took me shopping that day, and we picked out the fabric together. (That's a special memory...)

You can't see it very well from this picture, but the darker blue is solid, the yellow is really yellow and white tiny print, the lightest blue is also tiny blue and white print, and the print that sort of looks green is actually my largest print, that has all the colors in it together, including green, which was my border and backing for the quilt.

I like the idea of picking one "theme" fabric, with several colors in it, then matching everything to that fabric.

I can tell you more about this quilt than I could about the others, of course, since I made it. The entire quilt is pieced by hand. I didn't intend to do that, but after MANY tries with those angles on my machine, I gave up the idea of a machine-made quilt, and started threading my hand needle.

I found out later that this particular pattern is one "only for experienced quilters." Oh.

The white areas are each made from a single square or triangle. All the quilting was done by machine, and it really wasn't the greatest job of quilting I've ever seen. (understatement) There are several puckers on the back. Sigh.

Oh well. I had lots of fun doing this quilt, and I will treasure it always.