Remembering the Year 2003

(A sneak peek at Around America)



This was a very busy quilting year for me and I was able to get a lot done despite a new baby and moving halfway through the year. 

I wanted to learn how to do some outline quilting with the free-motion quilting foot, so I practiced on this whole cloth quilt. I call it Country Bear Wall Hanging.   I learned that outlining is harder than it looks, but as long as you don't look too close it's okay. 

Then once I felt confident, I quilted this Around the Twist (in a book by Trudie Hughes) which I call Around America on my little Pfaff 7550 in the sewing cabinet. It was my biggest quilt to machine quilt so far.  I found that as long as I concentrated on the small space I was working on it wasn't too bad.  It is a large queen size. 

My mom wanted to get some quilting done, so she paid me to quilt M's baby quilt and S's baby quilt. She also had me quilt her two Yellow Brick Road quilts. This began my time doing machine quilting for my mom to be able to afford my hobby. 

Then a big change came into my life. My husband, baby, and I moved in with my dad's mother. Grandmother Mildred was nearly 90 and suffering from short term memory loss.  I became her full time caregiver. 



I continued to keep myself busy (and sane) by making lots of quilts. Anytime my grandmother saw me working on quilts she always told me that she made two quilts by hand. (Her quilts are also mentioned in this post.)

Once living with my grandmother I finished this Navy Pinwheel I had started earlier in the year. We kept it on my grandmother's queen size bed and she loved to remind me that I made it for her. It looked really pretty in her blue bedroom.  I was able to keep it when she died.

It has a fun pieced back using some of the extra blocks.  I love the way the quilting looks on the back. 

With the scraps from the Navy Pinwheel I made my first table runner.

The table runner even has a pieced back to use up even more scraps

I then finished my twin size Fairy Log Cabin.  I started this quilt around 1998.   Here it is on display above my pantry in the kitchen. 

My mother loved my Fairy Log Cabin, so she had me piece two for her.





Then with the scraps I made a baby quilt for my niece C for Christmas. It was only my third quilt to give away, and it was hard for me to let it go.

I can't believe how far we made that fairy fabric go.  We used every last piece and put fussy cut fairies in the center of each block.   



I took another machine quilting class from Virginia. I made a pine tree table runner for my husband. My mother loved that so much that she had me make her the same table runner and matching place mats. I also quilted J's baby quilt for her.

I made this twin size jean quilt for my husband out of his jeans and some outdoorsy flannels.

All in all, it was a great year for quilting!

XX,

Jasmine