My first one sans rotary cutter was a Log Cabin. It's been around the block a time or two but still used.

I quilted before rotary cutters came along. I would make my quilt piece pattern out of stiff paper and would pin it to a few pieces of fabric and then cut. I was a stay at home mom so the time was not a factor. When I had cut many pieces, I would begin piecing and would cut more as needed. Was I ecstatic when I heard about rotary cutters! Quilting sure has been a different world since then.

Before the rotary cutter I did mostly cheater quilts and just hand quilted around the blocks. Now it is so much more fun!

I cut out my first quilt...a Tennessee Waltz...with scissors. All the squares were marked with pencil and it took almost forever. It was completed though, and hand quilted within 6 months back in 1987. It was my only project though. and before the days I had a stash.

I did and still have the calouses on my fingers to prove it. haha

I just love to quilt. Some one asked me about 2 days ago, "So you quilt?". I responded, "Constantly, I go to bed quilting and I get up quilting". My Dh just shook his head in agreement. I keep a hand cut/hand piecing/hand quilting project going all the time. From start to finish I love to do it by hand and I love to rotary cut and strip sew.

I began quilting in 1969 with scissors, pencil, and cereal boxes for templates. I hand sewed and hand quilted more than 100 quilts before I was able to afford a sewing machine. That was a happy day!

I made loads of traditional patterns that I based on quilts I saw in the Newark Museum in Newark NJ. (They have a quilt exhibit there now with some of those same quilts that inspired me.)
I made traditional pieced quilts: Log cabin quilts, Sawtooth stars, 9patch quilts, 4patch quilts, Lone Stars, Sister's Choice, Weathervane, Shoofly, Churndash, Jacob's Ladder, Three and Six, Snowball, Nelson's Victory. I had one quilting book early on-- Ruby McKim's 101 Patchwork Patterns.

Your work shows every loving stitch you make. It radiates love and prayers. Those who recieved one then or in the future will return the love and time. We are rich because we quilt, the old way or the new way. We have piece and contentment, a quite place for our hearts and minds to grow or heal, to think our own thoughts. Most of the world does not have this or even know how to obtain it. We are rich, all of us.

I started quite a few quilts... but only finished five. All were simple squares, or log cabin blocks.

No. Make it six. Now that I think of it, the "finished" ones outnumber the "started" ones!

That's better than I thought! I guess it is mostly the smaller projects that I started and abandoned along the way.

My standby's were dresden plates and drunkards paths.