Looking Back at Early Projects…Part 2

I apologize for the quality of the photos in these two posts.  These were taken before the days of digital.  You remember, don’t you?  When we bought rolls of film, loaded the camera, took way too many pictures, then sent them off to be developed and hoped that they all came out good.

In 1987, I took a class at the Brass Thimble Quilt Shop in Manchester, NH.  That shop closed several years later and the owner moved back to her hometown in northern Maine.  I cannot remember her name but she was a talented teacher.  

I took a crazy-patch appliqué class which resulted in the flimsy below.   The colors in this are so ‘80’s—remember “dusty rose” and “dusty blue”?   This top is entirely hand-pieced and appliquéd.  The crazy border was still unfinished in 2009 when I got laid off and I finished piecing it then but it remains unfinished because I want to appliqué a partial floral border on the edges and I’m undecided whether I will hand or machine quilt it.  What would you do? 

 

 

In 1990 I made this Debbie Mumm design called “An Apple A Day”   I loved her whimsical country style.  My kitchen, back then, had red countertops and harvest gold appliances (1970’s) so I made this quilt to hang on the wall.   The picture shows it after being basted but it did get quilted on a transatlantic passage by car carrier to Germany and Sweden! (there wasn’t very much to do on that cruise).  I still have this quilt but now I only display it at Christmas along with my other red and green quilts. 

 

 

According to what I wrote on the back of the picture below, I purchased this as a quilt kit in 1991 from Keepsake Quilting.  It was made for my friend, Diane who lived in an adorable log cabin and collected Snowmen.  This  kit came with all of the fabrics, batting and pattern.   I satin stitched his “twiggy” arms  which I  think looked a lot better than sewing real twigs to the fabric !

 

 

The next  photo is of the small wall-hanging I did for a guild challenge.  Just like the Xmas  raffle quilts, we were given packets of material and instructions to make a wall-hanging.  We had to use all of the fabrics in the pack but could add two or three additional fabrics of our choice.   It’s been so long I’m only guessing when I say that I added the pinks and light green fabrics.     Thankfully, I can still remember the names of the two sweet little models. All of the challenge quilts were displayed at the guild’s quilt show that year after which, it went to my aunt who lived in Florida who loved it.

 

The Dresden plate quilt below was made from a Quilt In A Day book by Wendy Gilbert.  I finished the top in 1992 but it stayed a “flimsy” till 2009 when I had it machine quilted.  I originally intended to hand-quilt this but I never really liked hand quilting so it was easy to put this quilt aside.   Several times, I was  tempted to donate/purge this top.  I am so happy now that I didn’t.  It is filled with wonderful scraps from my daughters’ clothing, my sewing projects and from swaps with friends.    (side note—I did (accidentally) sell the original  binding and backing fabric for this quilt at a yard sale [sigh])

 

 

 

This has been a short history of some of my projects, there are many more but I didn’t always take pictures and some were blocks or quilts that I did as a member of a guild committee or round-robin groups.  I am trying to do a better job of documenting all of my future projects which I posted about in March 2013.

Having written this post and viewing these pictures again, I can see my transformation from a very inexperienced quilt maker to a “competent” quilt maker.  I can also see the many ways that I want to improve.   Henry David Thoreau said that you should never look back unless you are planning to go that way.   I think for most of us, looking back and seeing where you came from is a good way to know the direction you want to go.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Gail