Quilt of my own

I've made quite a few quilts now, not that I'd call myself prolific. There are those wonderful people out there that seem to be able to churn out quilts. I don't mean this in a derogatory way at all. I am amazed at how fast they can put together the most beautiful quilts. Me, I'm a snail. Sometimes it seems to take me nigh on forever to complete a quilt. Ask my kids. I don't think I've ever completed a quilt on time as a gift for them. Bless them, but I knew they would understand - mostly- when their quilt was a little late. A really good example, my daughter's wedding quilt. She is being most tolerant of me. She's been married 3 years now and has given me a gorgeous granddaughter. Does she have her quilt? No. Though I give her regular updates and have even sent her pictures of the quilt in progress. I've spoken about it here before too. It's moving along, but at that snail's pace. I kid that it will be done by her 10th anniversary. I may not be far off the mark I'm afraid.

Almost all my quilts are gifts for friends or family and were an adaptation of a quilt pattern I've found in a book or magazine. I usually have more than one project going at a time because I like to have machine and hand projects to do. I love to hand quilt. The above mentioned wedding quilt is hand pieced and will be hand quilted. (For the record, I'm now sewing the rows together! It's not picture worthy or else I'd put a picture of it for you right now. Mostly just a mass of pins!) But I've been trying to get comfortable with machine quilting. There are times that a quilt just needs machine quilting, either because of the design or maybe how it was constructed.

I've just completed my first quilt that was completely my idea from start to finish. My church has the most beautiful stained glass behind the altar. There is a special name for it, but for the life of me I've never been able to pronounce it much less spell it. I won't even try here.

Pictures don't do it much justice, but I find it quite inspiring on many different levels. It is meditative and I really wanted to capture it in a quilt. I made a small wall hanging, combining applique and traditional piecing. I hope you like what you see.

Inspiration and beauty are all around us. For me, they all can SA(y) quilts.