Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!! Sampler - Throw Back Thursday!

I am enjoying looking back and writing about some of the quilts I made before I started blogging.  They really bring back vivid memories of the times that I made them in.  This quilt is made from the very first quilting book that I ever purchased for myself - Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!!  This is an excellent beginners quilt book and I feel like it's a timeless resource, covering so many techniques and just basic quilting know how.  I've made many quilts from this book and really have to credit it for giving me a great start in my quilting journey!  This is still widely available and there are three editions, I'm not sure if they are very different from the original, but I am sure they are just as wonderful.

As you will see from my pictures, my quilt is made up from lots of little floral fabrics (calico pints is what we often called them).  That's mostly what was available at that time, and with 4 little girls in those days, I made lots of dresses and had abundant scraps for my quilting.

The paisley is what I used for my color scheme.

I learned so many techniques from this book!  Applique, curved piecing, strip piecing, accurate stitching so my triangles didn't lose their points.

I learned to draft my own patterns from this book.  How to sew sashings and cornerstones, and how to add borders.  This top waited for a long time before I found the fabric that was just right for the border - and I learned that it's worth while to be patient because it really brought the chaos together!

I started out learning how to cut with scissors and templates, and I got brave enough to purchase a rotary cutter and learn to use that as well!  Y-seams were another great topic that I mastered while making this quilt.

This was one of my first experiments with free motion quilting and it really set me free to finish all the quilt tops I had made and didn't have time to quilt by hand.  I perfected my meandering while making this quilt, all done on my 1979 Kenmore sewing machine!  I chose a nice busy calico print for the backing and it definitely hides any imperfections in the quilting.  It was completed in April of 2001 - so somewhere around 8 or 9 years in the making.  That makes me feel a little less discouraged about the state of some of my current UFO's!  Some quilts take their time to be finished, it seems.

Yesterday was day 2 of the Once Upon a Story Row along - here are the blogs to visit for the new patterns and giveaways for Thursday September 5, 2019:

Made By Marney

Pretty Piney Quilts

Renee’s Quilting Addiction

I also drew for the winner of the prize on my Beat the Heat blog hop giveaway:  Gene Black was the winner!  Gene, I'll have your charm squares in the mail this afternoon!  Thanks to everyone for all the great comments and naming suggestions - the one that caught my eye was Stepping Stones.  I liked this because it's a beginners sampler, designed to teach step by steps some of the techniques used in quilt making.  

Thus my Quilt Along for 2020 will be called the Stepping Stones Sampler!  If you want to sign up for that, just visit this page!  I'll be sending out fabric requirements soon, so you can start collecting what you need.

Linking up with Sandra for Throwback Thursday!

Now, let's go do some quilting!