I patiently piece just so I can get to my first love - machine quilting. I always practice quilting on a small quilt sandwich before quilting my project. One day my friend saw the practice piece and remarked that it looked like a small quilt. Soooooo, I began to plan my practice pieces so that I had a neater looking piece (no threads hanging). I began to plan my free motion quilting patterns so they were more pleasing than random quilting. Then I painted the practice piece and had an additional quilt. Then as fate would have it, I came across Irena Bluhm's book Quilts of a Different Color which appealed to me - no piecing.