This is my very first quilt. I started it way back in 2000.  I made this from instructions in Kaffe Fassett’s first quilting book. Knowing no better, I cut cardboard templates and traced round them with pens. The accuracy was non existent. I sewed it all together, trying to match corners as best I could.

However, when it came to quilting, I had no idea. I chose black fabric, black thread, bought some batting and off I went. Well, I had never heard of a walking foot, and you can imagine what happened. There were major creases and crinkles and puckering and it looked awful. So I put it in a box and there it stayed for about 3 years.

After I took some real quilting lessons, I dug it out, unpicked the back from the front from the batting, and let me tell you this was no picnic. Never, never use a black backing and black thread and then try and unpick it. It was an eyesight challenge and an exercise in patience. And the batting did not survive the experience. Frustrated, I put it back in a box.

A few years later I did a workshop on free motion quilting and loved it. I decided the crappy old quilt top could become a practise sampler. So I dug it out again, chose some not quite so black backing, and started practising. I made up quilting patterns, got ideas from books and practised stippling. Turned out I am a natural at curvy lines, and hopeless at straight ones. Even with a walking foot.

This was my favourite. I loved the stone pebble pattern. It takes an awful lot of thread though.

So this quilt is not precious, it is our everyday, take on camping trips and wash frequently quilt. Isn’t that good though? To have made something useful. How cool.

And just like that an obsession love of quilting was born.