In just a week, I will be off to Adelaide to teach Shibori Serendipity and Serendipity Circles at Quilt Encounter, the annual retreat of the Quilters’ Guild of South Australia.
While I am down that way, I will also be giving a presentation to the evening Guild meeting on Thursday, 5 July 2012 (7.15pm for 8pm at Burnside Community Centre, Portrush Road, Burnside). Come along if you can, I am sure that visitors are welcome.
I’ll be borrowing the infamous pink suitcase from the Beneath the Southern Sky travelling exhibition, so that I can share a bigger selection of my quilts “in the cloth”. Even then, I am constrained by luggage limits so I’m putting together a digital slideshow. I admit that my spreadsheet listing of projects is not quite up to date (ahem) but I do have a photographic record of every single one of the hundreds of quilts that I have made over the years. No retrospective would be complete without mentioning the very first quilt that I made over the 1984/85 summer holidays before I moved into my first university group house:
I am rather fond of this utilitarian quilt made from seersucker offcuts rescued from the local clothing factory. It was made without a rotary cutter or reference to any quilting resources. It is quilted with large basting stitches in the ditch through a dense sheet backing and it has survived decades of service relatively intact. I can only hope that my other bed quilts fare as well. Composition-wise, it is not so very far removed from some of the linear art quilts I make today.
I echo the sentiments on the Peppermint Patch Quilts Facebook page, where Tracey writes:
We all started somewhere. I’m never embarrassed by my old quilts. I had to make them and learn something so I could make this one and the next one…
How do you feel about your first quilt when you look back at it?
Pennie Magee says
This is a great quilt! As for my first quilt, I’m very proud of it. I made it in 2002 as a present for my stepdaughter’s 12th birthday. I had to learn to rotary cut, and to applique, piece, and quilt by hand, as I didn’t have a sewing machine. It took me six months to make the quilt, and it’s not exactly squared, but I still love the quilt. My stepdaughter has this on her bed here at home, and when she’s here from college, she uses it to keep herself cozy while watching movies on the tv.
Lisa says
You’re first quilt is fabulous! My first quilt was . . .well. . .very unskilled. I started out tying quilts – two large sheets with puffy batting in-between and then I heard about quilting on a sewing machine! What an interesting concept. I didn’t know much about basting though. Needless to say it was an interesting experience!
Brenda says
My first quilt was made with fat puffy polyester batting too 🙂
Delores says
Your first quilt fits perfectly into the Modern Quilt Movement. You were ahead of your time!
Jacqueline Bryant Campbell says
My first quilt was so bad I suppressed the memory of it for 30 years. It was a class project and my mother and I were completely clueless. If you want the unlovely details, I blogged about it a couple of years ago at http://www.jbryantcampbell.blogspot.com/2010/11/mommy-me-and-worst-quilt-ever.html.
Wen Redmond says
Isn’t this fun to share and see everyone’s early quilts!
What fun!
Linda Stokes says
Great post & nice that your quilt has stood the test of time!
I’m still making my first bed quilt – so far, have only done small quilts.
Monica Johnstone says
My first bed quilt (glorified lap quilt) used three colorways of cajun cooking fabric (red/black/white) plus red/white and black/white gingham. Now about a dozen years old, we use it mainly as a picnic blanket because it is pretty garish for anything else. On really cold nights, it sometimes makes it onto the pile on my son’s bed though.