Mary Ellen

Thought I would add a few more small quilts for show & tell.
This way, if I have it in a pic (and most of them sprout legs, and walk away to their new homes so fast, that I don't get pictures of them completed...) You get to see.

I love show & tell, and would love to see your works too.

There is a story behind the cheater panel I hand quilted.
Sometimes we need to break a rule...
At a quilt show years ago, the quilt police decided "only REAL quilts, no crazy patch, and nothing that was not ...."

This hurt the feelings of a girlfriend who had worked so hard to complete a crazy patch that was simply glorious. I tried to tell her, just do some hand quilting and it will qualify. But she sat and cried instead.

To me, a quilt show should not only show off your best work, it should also inspire new quilters with the thought "I could do that" instead of "I could never do anything that amazing."

I had been working on this quilt for a now deceased Auntie who just wanted something for holidays, and from me. As we shopped at her local fabric store, she saw the panel, and so it became a lap project during that trip. She wanted just as much hand quilting on it, as if I had appliqued the pieces myself.

To find a cheater panel hand quilted at a judged show...that would be surprising, and some new quilter to be just might say if she can do it, so can I.
And it gave me naughty pleasure to find a way to beat their strict rules.

So I pushed hard to give Auntie her heart's desire, have it completed in time for the show, and then gave it to her. I forget now if she got to display it on her empty wall for one or two holidays, but I did hear her three children were arguing over who got to inherit it...imagine thinking of that cheater as an important inheritance? LOL

Mary Ellen