Three Years Ago...

I took my first quilting class in March of 2006. It was a class my mom talked me into taking that her friend was teaching for a project called the fat quarter quilt. Sounded like fun, so I bought the 7 fat quarters, found a coordinating orange (not my color from the get go, but I really liked how it looked with the others), and went about my cutting homework before class.

About 30 minutes into the class, I knew I was in way over my head. To that point, I had made one quilt top and the hardest piecing element in it was 4 patches. This one included an intricate design, multiple assembly steps per row, and set in seams! I did get through the first two rows of the quilt in class and thought I was doing fairly well. I continued to work on it at home until something else caught my attention, at which point I set it aside to pick up later.

I tried for a while to do a row at a time, but it was just too hard to remember how to do it, put together a row, then put it all down. And usually by the end of a row, I was so frustrated that I didn't want to touch it again!

I renewed my resolve about 4 months ago and I got her done! It has been pieced on three machines, each of which was my main machine at the time, and has who knows how many threads in it. It is a little wonky to say the least - 1 1/4" difference in width from the top to bottom before I put on the borders! That's a lot to work in, but there was no way I was taking anything out to make it better! I put the borders on Saturday at my sewing day and am so very happy to have it ready to quilt. It doesn't count in Waun-a-quilt yet, but if I can pick out a backing and get it quilted this summer, it will.