Where It All Began...

This is the first quilt I made. And the only quilt I've finished. (However, I'm watching lots of Dexter this weekend and hand sewing the binding on my gift baby quilt, so I will have another finished quilt to show soon. Promise.) I wanted to revisit this quilt, which I made in 2004, because it is the first project I made in the orange and blue color scheme I've become so fond of. Will's aunt talked me into quilting a year or so after she talked my sister-in-law Meg into quilting, and I decided an introduction to quiltmaking class at the local quilt store would be the best way to learn how to sew and quilt. I chose to make the smallest size quilt option, so I could get my blocks made and pieced in the first two weeks of the class. I was in Spain for one of those two weeks, so I knew the smaller the better for me. Once the quilt top was pieced, the teacher helped us pick border fabrics based on the fabrics and colors we liked best. I told her I liked an aqua floral print and an orange floral print in my quilt top best, so she steered me to the orange batik I used for the wide border and the aqua and green print I used for the thin border. My friend Maya made me enter the quilt in the Austin Quilt Guild show which meant instead of my usual procrastination, I had to quilt it, bind it, and make a sleeve for it in a couple of weeks to meet the deadline for the show. The day after the show ended I found out I was pregnant, so this crib sized quilt quickly became the quilt for the baby. When we moved back to Nashville and into our new house, I chose paint and linens for the baby's room around the quilt.

This was Ely's room for almost 3 years and now it's Agnes's room. She will have her own special quilt one day, but for now Ely's quilt still hangs on her wall. Every time I rock and nurse her to sleep in the rocking chair, I get to look at the quilt that started my love of sewing and of tangerine and turquoise.