First Quilt

The topic of the week is How did you get started Quilting, and what was your first quilt. My dad is a Firefighter/EMT. He got Called to Ground Zero in New York on September 12th 2001 - the day after. He worked with many many many Fireighters, emergency personnel etc and they all traded patches from the various departments.

He came home with about 40 patches. He wanted a cool way to display them. I, being a seamstress - I owned a Maternity Manufacturing Company - brilliantly thought - wow lets make a quilt and put them on it! Well the patches continued to grow in number as I was planning the quilt. So I just added more blocks. I had decided to make a log cabin quilt - becasue that looked easy to me....(cough cough sputter spew) I had never used a rotary cutter. Nevertheless I conquered - and ended up with a King Plus size quilt with all these patches. I did not have a long arm ( now I do) did not know such machines existed, so I threw the monster on my little Janome and struggled to sew the patches on it.

Then not know that binding was a seperate step, I folded the back over, mitered it and stitched it down - with the machine. It took forever! But it was done. It now resides on my Dads bed and is looked on with a lot of love.

Well it isn't perfect, but it was the intro to quilting. I had a lot of fun with that quilt, so I got a quilting magazine. There was a picture of a blue and white quilt I just loved - so I decided to make it for my Cousin and his new wife. I asked them there favorite colors, found the quilt shop ( who knew those things existed) walked in and told her ( she is now a great friend) I want to make this quilt in these colors. How do I do that? and voila - a quilter was born! Now I have a long arm and everything!!