First Hand-Quilted Quilt...from 1989...

I got this idea from Judy Laquidara over at Patchwork Times.  She has lots of neat cows and chickens and Quilts on her blog, along with F R E E cooking recipies  and quilt patterns, an upcoming online feather class beginning June 1, 2012, and even a few books she's written - she's one busy lady!

Meet Judy Laquidara w/one of her prized chickens ;-)

Professional quilt artist, author, and apparently an animal lover -
to name just a few of the attributes of this busy lady!

Anyway, while reading her bio yesterday, she featured her first hand pieced, hand quilted quilt, and I thought well gosh, I have one of those, too!  Only mine is machine pieced on one of Singer's first embroidery machines - a Singer 6268, pieced and machine & hand quilted in 1989...

Yep, it's torn and tattered - almost 'loved' to death ;-)

Cross-hatched feather heart hand quilted w/polyester batting!

There's even a nice hole my Brittany started chewing. 

See the X's in the adjacent blocks, those were machine quilted to help stabilize the quilt and for speed

Hand quilted heart - really, it's there...

Our family has fought over this quilt for years - don't know 'why', maybe it's because it was 'the first one'!  And I really don't know 'why' I didn't think to make another family quilt to help spread the wealth until years later, maybe it's because I was soooo busy making Cabbage patch clothes and doll quilts for my two daughters in between working my custom clothing/alteration/craft business and then quilts for college bound students, and before that I was an apprentice computer programmer for ADM in Decatur, IL during the development of the gasohol formula, better known today as ethanol - who knows?!  

It's kind of a blurr what all went on back then, I just know we were always busy, especially in the summer w/gardening/weeding & mowing/canning & freezing, ball games and farming, and on and on and on...like many families raising children today, there's always lots to do and usually not enough hours in the day to do them!  I know one thing, I never had trouble sleeping back then ;-)

But I've always sewn - even made most of my clothes through high school and later my business attire when I started working outside the home, baby clothes for my oldest daughter and clothing for both daughters while they were growing up and then some, including prom dresses and maternity clothing.  Been sewin' since I was 6 years old, learned on my Grandmother's Singer treadle - I LOVED that machine!

Like Judy, wish I'd kept track of all the quilts I've made over the years, especially ALL the gifted ones, there's been more than a few - but I still have the memories, especially those of the incredible feelings I enjoyed while making them... Priceless.

Hope you enjoyed our stroll down memory lane and Please take some time to pop over to Judy's at Patwork Times.com - it's a real treat and sooo worth it!

Time to go hang another set of roman shades so I can sew some more Bow Ties later on along w/African zebra crazy quilt.  In fact, I do believe I got a few more pieced since my last post so here you go:

20 More Bow Ties...

And a couple more African zebra crazy quilt blocks:

This is one of my favorites!

Only 3 more African zebra crazy quilt blocks to go and I'm ready to sew this one together sooooo....time to get those shades hung so I can get back to sewing!

Later,

~Deb