Looking back... My First Quilt

In high school I belonged to the "gifted" program. First they called it "HEIGHT", but changed it later to "GATE". Gifted-And-Talented-Education was easier to remember than whatever "HEIGHT" was the acronym for. If we completed a gifted project or internship during the school year, we would get half of a high school credit. Since we were all nerds in school and wanted more A's than our friends, most did the project. I did two projects for GATE in high school. One was a paper mache cow (another post, another time!) and the other was a quilt.

The advisor told me if I were to make a quilt, I would need to design it myself. I said, "Okay". My mom and grandma were very familiar around a sewing machine. I thought mom would mentor me.

When mom heard of the project, she kind of freaked out. She had never made a quilt herself... So she took me to the local sewing shop and we bought Eleanor Burns' book Around the World, which was part of a quilt-in-a-day series. When I read the book, I remember thinking, "Why would I design my own quilt when I could just copy the instructions from this book?"

So began the lying.
And not making my own quilt design.
And not learning the true meaning of being gifted.

I might not have designed it, but I loved making this quilt.

I needed a book to tell me about fabric selection, tips-of-the trade, making the quilt top, quilt assembly, and quilting & tying quilts. This was 1995. There might have been internet, but there wasn't craftster or other blogs to guide me.

Almost 15 years later, this quilt is still in use. My family keeps it at our cabin on Rainy Lake. The high loft batting inside comes in handy during cold summer nights in northern Minnesota!

And look where I am now! I design all sorts of quilt tops. HA!