My First Quilt

Not the first quilt I ever worked on, but the first one I made start to finish by myself.

I made this for my sister when she was pregnant, 30 years ago. I had just turned 19, and this was before rotary cutters were in every quilting household, and before I had any real quilting tools, other than a decent pair of scissors, a hand-me-down iron, and a machine that worked. (Obviously it was before I owned a decent camera as well 🤷‍♀️).

I bought some plastic sheets, and made my own templates. Then traced and cut every one of those triangles by hand. (Man, I am glad we've come a long way on the quilting tools front!).

She loved it, and has kept it in her cedar chest all these years. Looking back now, I love the end result, and I love what that process taught me. But I do admit that I refused to work with triangles for a LONG time afterwards. I eventually came around and have worked with them since - but I still cringe a bit when I see a quilt pattern that has triangles that are not the standard half or quarter squares. Someday, maybe, I will be cured of that feeling. 😉