My First Quilt

In January of 2001, I decided to make a quilt. I had sewn a lot as a child and young adult, but after a while, it just didn't seem cost efficient to sew, so I stopped. My mom, who had taught me to sew also stopped sewing so much so there were several years where the sewing machine mainly just sat and gathered dust. Occasionally I got it out to sew patches on my son's scout uniforms, or to fix tears but that was it.
Then my mom started quilting, she seemed obsessed about it, but while it seemed like something I'd like to do someday, I wasn't all that interested. But, my daughter Tania . . . she was interested . . . and before she went off to college she was determined to make a quilt. So my mom, Tania and I went fabric shopping and chose fabric for a quilt. And Tania determinedly learned to cut and sew the pieces together until she had a quilt. It was very pretty. She went to college and then GAVE IT AWAY to one of her roommates. Then when she came back home for a visit she wanted to make another one so we pretty much did the same routine with my mom. Then something happened and my interest started to grow and pretty soon I had decided . . . I wanted to make a quilt. I gave myself 6 months to make a quilt and the deadline was that it would be donated to a raffle that would be held that summer at a dog show in Wisconsin. We were showing Springer Spaniels at the time, and the English Springer Spaniel 2001 National Specialty was being held in Oconomowoc, WI. I became obsessed with making a "perfect" quilt and had no picture in my mind of what I wanted to do. So I started looking at books and patterns until I found a book I LOVED. Folk Art Quilts by Sandy Bonsib. I chose the pattern called Lopsided Hearts. I modified the pattern to include dog bones and one English Springer Spaniel (ESS) in some of the places where there were hearts. Then I went shopping for fabric. It was a scrappy quilt, so it needed LOTS of different fabrics. Lots of 1/4-yard cuts. Some of the fabric was really weird because I wanted it to look REALLY scrappy . . . like it had REAL scraps in it. In fact, though, not a single piece really was a scrap, I bought each piece purposely and I agonized over almost every decision. Silly me!
It did take me six months to make it, I was sewing on the binding AT THE DOG SHOW! I put every single stitch into it, I even taught myself how to machine quilt it with stitch in the ditch, meandering and loops. Soon after I started sewing it on my old Kenmore I decided to buy a new sewing machine. Perhaps this quilt is the most expensive scrap quilt ever made!!! And of course, I was hooked into quilting.
I sold around $700 in raffle tickets for the quilt. I loved the quilt so much that it seemed like it should have been more like $700,000!!! The money raised was donated to the PRA Fund of the English Springer Spaniel Field Trial Association's Foundation. Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA) is an eye disease that causes blindness in dogs.
Now you will know where QUILTEDESS comes from.