This wall hanging was made in 1980 when Jessica was about 1 1/2. We've always had cats helping me quilt by laying in the middle of whatever I was working on, but I also had Jessica always helping in her own way. I mentioned in a previous post that I was taking my first quilting classes when I found out I was pregnant. As time has passed I can equate quilts I've made to her age.
I took a class on medallion quilts. We had to plan out the quilt and do some drafting to make our different borders fit as the quilt grew. I decided on stars as the main blocks for it and then had to size them so each row would fit. Whoever may have been quilting and taking classes in the 80's can remember that they were a lot longer. I think this one was 6-8 weeks, meeting once a week and doing homework the rest of the time. This quilt is all hand pieced and hand quilted.
There are about 860 pieces in the stars. I am amazed at what I could do back then. I didn't have to work outside our home, just did the bookkeeping for our business, so had quite a bit of time. And then there was nap time. Pure quilting joy.
Now that my kids are all grown I work full time at our business so not as much quilting time. I'm going more to machine work learning to do all the techniques that way. I've already posted some of my first time tries at applique. I made 3 quilts pieced by machine in 2006. I joined the Thimbleberries Club at Miss Millie's quilt shop and there are always different club quilts being offered. I'm getting a lot of machine sewing experience with them. I'll be posting Pics of those later on.
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