My mom taught me to quilt about 20 years ago. She started by teaching me to hand quilt before teaching me to hand piece. I'm glad she did. The project was finished and I had a nice wallhanging for my bedroom. This is mom handquilting a baby quilt for my cousin.
After learning to hand quilt the wall hanging, I made several baby quilts out of panels that I could just quilt by hand and give as gifts. If she had started with hand piecing, I still wouldn't have a quilt. Soon, I was ready to tackle piecing. Mom had several quilting magazines and books laying around for me to find the perfect quilt. And wouldn't you know it, as a newbi, I would pick a very labor intensive pattern. Pieced hearts and diamonds set on point with half diamonds all the way around the border. Each heart block has 39 patches and there are 20 of them. Each diamond has 22 patches and there are 12 of those. Then you add in the setting half diamonds. There are about 1400 patches in this quilt. This is one of the hearts.
Want to talk about a UFO, this is my big one! After about 15 years, I have completed all 20 of the heart blocks and 2 of the diamonds. But, I'm still working on it. I don't even like the fabric anymore. But when I need something to do that is portable that I can work on with my hands, this is still the one I reach for when I have nothing else going on.
Why don't I just let it go you ask? I don't even know the answer to that. I guess it is because it was my first attempt at picking a pattern, first attempt at picking out fabric and first attempt at hand piecing. NONE of which were very good back then. But I'll still try to make it right. Maybe in another 15 years, I'll get around to quilting it.
