This Quilter's Journey, Part 4

So there was the summer about 1996 I think, where I read Sandra Dallas' Persian Pickle Club which I got from the library. I loved that book. It had great characters and lots of quilting talk.  I was so in love with quilting or the idea of what I thought quilting was.  So I decided to make a sampler quilt so I could try out lots of blocks.  This is that quilt:

I had several books which had quilt blocks in them and I chose some of the easiest ones to make. I picked fabrics based on what looked right together in each block, not considering they would all end up together in one quilt.  I actually still have 3-4 blocks I didn't use in this quilt.

 Oh, I had to do plenty of math to make the blocks all come out the same size. And then, when they were done, I had to find a way to put them all into a cohesive quilt. I found a quilt in a book that used these triangles to make blocks on point, that kind of look like star points for the pieced blocks.  I never used black before, but I needed something neutral that would work with all the blocks.  Then I put it on the frame and had quilted the whole thing. I let each block lead me and tell me how to quilt it.

 I put the autograph block in the center, and signed my name and the year, 1996. That is the only label that the quilt has.  My family has loved this quilt about to death. It has been on picnics, to football games. It has held babies and even did a stint on our bed for awhile.

This is such an early quilt in my long quilting career, but I love it so much, even now.  Talk to you soon.