My First: The Rail Fence

In January 2010, this Rail Fence pattern became the first quilt I ever completed, start to finish... mostly. At this point, I had not attempted the actual quilting of the quilt or the binding. My mom and I picked out the fabric and went for busy with this one... it turned out fun! This was such an easy first quilt because  it was completed using strip quilting. Each square on the quilt is cut from the same strip: the purple, blue, orange, and polka-dot strips sewn together. In order to complete the rail fence, each square is turned as it is placed, creating that zig-zag appearance. I recommend this to all early quilters out there... It's a simple pattern to follow and goes together very quickly.

~Daughter, Kim

Scrap Pyramid... Decades' Project

Every quilt has a story, but this one is lacking a beginning. We discovered this scrapped beauty as an unfinished quilt top, just a few rows sewn together, after moving into my grandmother's home in 2004. My mom picked up from where my grandmother had left off. She completed it with the remaining triangles and used an existing one as a template for creating more pieces. Mom used random fabric scraps of all kinds collected throughout the years: including curtains; old, worn out clothes; and scraps from clothes she had made for my sister and I when we were children. Upon completion of the pyramid top, mom backed it in a soft yellow and binded it in red. She used packaged/pre-made binding (which she will never use again), and did a scalloped edge on the length of the quilt (which she will also never do again) instead of cutting half-triangles to square it off. Although the beginning is unknown, I do believe the quilt's story will continue to grow quite beautifully in our lakeside, country home.

~Daughter, Kim