Exactly and I agree with you. Most of my quilts have stories behind them and memories built into them which makes them treasures. Each of my quilts until the last few years were also tied to each other by common fabrics that were use in each of the quilts and fabrics use to make garments as the children were growing up. Each quilt completed taught me many new skills and techniques along the way and oh yes, each quilt has imperfections in them. Being a self taught quilter has not been an easy process but the quilt in my avatar was begun the first year of our marriage, totally torn apart and redesigned and completed just before our 38th anniversary and everyone who knows me can see the difference between my early quilts and this completed one and since then all of my quilts. I'm a quilt as you go hand quilter. It's also takes time to learn things when it takes forever to complete a quilt. An average for me to do a queen quilt was 1 - 4 years while working full time. Since retiring I'm more prolific but haven't done any queen quilts but working on quilts for 7 grandchildren. Each came home in a grammy hand quilted quilt and each now has a twin sized hand quilted quilt - the last one will get hers in July unless I decide to enter it into our Jan. 2011 quilt show. They tell us that to enter a quilt into the show it must be perfect - well, this one isn't quite perfect which is why I'm holding back. It's darn close though with only 2 glaring issues and you really have to be looking to spot them. No one, not even the quilters, have spotted them yet so we'll see. My biggest concern is that if I do enter it and it places that my daughter in law, bless her heart, won't allow her now 7 year old daughter to have it. She fears the quilts will wear out is saving them for when they are old enough to appreciate them. My daughter allows her family to use their quilts daily and they are the one ones who treasure my quilts and NEED their grammy quilts as they feel the love eminating from them.
Originally Posted by tkhooper
Many years ago I read an article about a quilter who was traveling through the back roads of america. At one place a lady had so of her quilts on the line. They were so beautiful that she just had to stop. She was invited in to see her other quilts and they were all quilts that had won awards. But as the lady looked at them she noticed that there were errors here and there. And she realized that they weren't given awards because they were perfect but because they were made with love and everyone of them had a story to tell.
And that's the quilts I want to make.