fabricologist

fabricologist

Monday, March 24, 2014

This Quilter's Journey-My Very First Quilt

I had thought it was gone forever, but when I happened to mention it to my oldest daughter, she said "Oh, I have it." So here today, I am going to show it to you. Before I do, I want to remind you that I made this quilt in about 1979, and when I did, I knew less than nothing about quilting. I made it from scraps leftover from sewing garments. Okay...ready?
 This is the patchwork side, all cut with scissors and hand sewn together. The denim around the outside was recycled jeans.
 It's lumpy as heck with polyester batting that has shifted since it is tied, and not too close together.
And this is the front. All stained, wrinkles and yuk! I am almost embarrassed to be showing this.

 Embroidery block with a very wrinkled ribbon on it. There was a popular set of sheets with a similar print back then and I tried to copy it, sort of.
 My philodendron plant that was in my livingroom.  All the leaves were hand appliqued by me with no fusibles. Heck, I don't know if we even had those back then. lol
 Another plant, this time with embroidered stems. I loved these two plant blocks. Still kinda like them.
                           A boat, once I decided it was going to be a baby quilt.
 Ewwwww, so stained...don't look. No, just kidding. All fabric scraps I saved for years.
 A cute little heart and some ribbon trim. The reason the applique is hand done is that my singer featherweight sews only a straight stitch.
And the odd orange gingham teddy bear.  Now I made this over the course of about 2-3 years, working off and on. I finally finished it when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. It graced the bottom of our playpen (a perfect fit) through three babies.  Now my daughter brought it to me so I could photograph it for sharing here, but she doesn't want it back. I'm not sure what I will do with it. But anyway, that is how I started on my quilting journey some 35 years ago.  Hope you enjoyed the story. Talk to you soon.

4 comments:

NorahS said...

Well, we all start somewhere, right? I wish I had a picture of the first baby quilt I made.

Susan said...

you've come along way baby!

Lisa in Port Hope said...

If you don't want to keep it, it could go to the Humane Society to keep a puppy warm.

Jeanie said...

I have to say that you chose a pretty complicated first quilt with all of that applique! And you did a great job too! It's very creative and has obviously been well loved. I call that a success!