my very first real quilt

i've made a few quilts in my day -- the kind you buy two flat sheets and tie it, or sew a bunch of squares together and tie it. but now i've actually made a real quilt -- one with a pattern, borders, the whole nine-yards.

a friend of mine at church asked me to put together a quilt top for a service day our congregation had on September 11. i said sure, thinking maybe a baby quilt or something similar. she needed a twin-sized quilt that would hang to the floor. i had never made anything that big. and she gave me a bag of fabric with four started blocks. and i soon realized i might have said "sure" too soon.

i came home and let the bag of fabric sit for a while. maybe too long, because before i knew it, i had two weeks to put together this quilt and i had four blocks. my first thought, "i could sew these four blocks together and sew it on a sheet."

but, i knew that was more of a easy-way out. so, i turned to the internet for inspiration. what does a finished quilt look like? and what pattern were these four blocks? maybe a variation on log cabin?

after searching through countless images, i had a few ideas and started cutting and sewing rectangles to squares. i made 31 squares to add to the four i already had and then set them off with a border of black.

and in less than two weeks, i had one quilt top. a real quilt. and i realized why i like sewing clothes more -- i am not a super precise sewer, and trying to keep those squares square was a lot more work!