Tuesday's Display Chain - Quilts - Anything Quilts

Misi's display chain today focuses on quilts ... anything quilts.

My love affair with quilts began when I was a child.  No one in my family made quilts & I am guessing that my love for them came from seeing them in picture books.  To me a quilt represents love, comfort, & home.

I made my first quilt in 1990 when we were living in Tennessee.  I went to a quilt shop in a small town & saw that they were offering a beginners quilting class.  I immediately signed up & picked my fabrics ... a horrid 90's color palate of white, pink, & blue calico.  I remember the ladies at the store were busy with another customer that day.  I assume she was "somebody" because they couldn't do enough to help her out.  Finally one of them came over to me & grudgingly took my bolts of fabric, cut the necessary yardage & signed me up for the class.  On the first day of class I sat at a table in a small room. There were about a dozen of us in the class each with our own little table.  The instructor then taught us how to make templates from cardboard, trace around them, & cut them out.  She then said it was time to sew them together.  I expected her to lead us to another room filled with sewing machines for our use, but as I looked around the room I saw all the other ladies threading their needles & beginning to stitch their pieces by hand!  Hand piecing!  Hand piecing a queen size sampler quilt!  Everyone got a good laugh when they found out I thought we were using machines.  The instructor said "A quilt isn't a quilt unless it's hand pieced."  I didn't agree with that but I had paid my money so went about hand piecing my top.  I missed the last 2 classes because I ended up in the hospital with a blood clot in my leg but I did finish my quilt top.  I had not realized the class did not follow through with actually quilting the quilt ... just making the top.  I didn't like the way the top turned out (really hated those colors together) so I held onto the top for a few years & then sold it to someone for $90.  She eventually sent it away to have it machine quilted & was quite happy with it.

I never took another quilt class but I did amass a great many books & watched a lot of quilting shows on TV so basically learned to piece a quilt on a machine on my own. I've made quite a few over the years & I hope you will enjoy looking at the photos.

This quilt is the first one I made by machine. The pattern is called Mock Log Cabin.  I hand quilted it.  It is made from all the fabrics my husband bought me one Christmas.  First you will see a picture of me with all the fabrics, then a picture of the finished quilt   : )

  

The following quilt is the quilt I now have on my bed.  I was always fascinated with "the old days" & loved old feedsacks.  This quilt is made with a sampling of the feedsacks I have collected over the years.  The top side is made from 6" squares, no two alike, & the back side is made from various feedsack pieces sewn together. It is machine quilted with a Baptist Fan pattern which was a popular pattern used in the 1930s.  

I really fell in love with the 30s & so made quite a few quilts using 1930s reproduction fabrics.  The following photo shows one of my 30s sampler quilts.  Each block is quilted differently.  This quilt was made using blocks from an online block exchange.  

Here is a quilt top which was also made using blocks from an online block exchange. I only pieced together the top ... then got a new bed & discovered the finished quilt was going to be too small so I took it all apart & have yet to put it all back together.  I need to make a few more blocks to add to it to enlarge the size a bit. 

The following quilt pattern is called Jacob's Ladder.  I made this quilt as a gift for my cousin.  It is hand quilted.  

This next quilt was a Christmas gift for my brother.  The pattern is called Rail Fence & I used patriotic fabrics because he likes the history of our country.  It was machine quilted.  

This is the last quilt top I made although this photo was taken before I sewed the blocks together.  The pattern is called Friendship Star.  I made it to use on my bed here in this house but I am having trouble finding just the right border fabric for it. 

I have made a lot of baby quilts & other quilts over the years but unfortunately don't have any photos of them.  I also have about 7 or 8 quilts packed away that are just about finished ... I only need to add the binding to them.

I did not make the following quilt ... it was a gift to me.  My mother passed away 6 years ago & afterward my father became very ill & we thought we were going to lose him too. My brother & I went to Florida to take care of him & we were there for 2 months. Thankfully he regained his strength & went on to live another 3 years.  When I came back home after those 2 months I found a package waiting for me & it was this quilt. My friends in the online quilt group made the blocks & sent them to my dear friend (the one I mentioned in Sunday's post who has muscular dystrophy) who sewed them together & had the quilt finished for me.

I've also made other quilted items over the years.  The following pictures are of some Christmas wallhangings I made a few years ago.

  

And finally here are the quilted Christmas stockings I made for me & John.  John's is on the left, mine is on the right.

I really enjoy quilts & quilting.  Like I said, to me a quilt represents love, comfort, & home.  

God bless you if you've made it this far through my post ... lol!  I hope you enjoyed the photos.  Be sure to check out the Tuesday Display Chain post on Misi's blog ... 1890s Gable House Musings ... so you can visit other bloggers who have shared their quilts as well   : )