Grandma58

Get rid of it and free your mind!

quiltnotes

In 1974 I bought a pattern for an appliqued Hawaiian quilt when we were in Honolulu. Started it the next year, finally finished it in 2008! It was too ambitious for a beginner. 34 years to make a quilt sounds terrible, but it's the unfortunate truth. As long as I am confessing, I started a Trip Around the World quilt in1981 and finished it in 2001. All hand quilted. Since then I've not taken over a year to complete a quilt.

stefanib123

I'm seeing many Lone Star quilts on here! That worries me, because that's one of my to do projects and it's at the top of my list. I LOOOVe that pattern, alas, I know I'm nowhere near capable of doing one yet. I just recently started doing triangles that I was so scared of. Squares, lots of nice, even squares is what I like, LOL!

I love hearing these stories! Especially the 42year old baby quilt! My first grandson is 4 months old and I'm still working on his!

joycet

I started a State Flower quilt in 1978. I was doing all hand work on it. In 2005 I finally finished it. I did Hawaii and New York and decided it wasn't something that I wanted to do. I was telling a dear friend about it and she asked me to bring other the blocks I'd done. I did. She got interested in it and said she wanted to do one. I decided that I would do the blocks so that winter we did hand embroidery. My aunt and another friend got interested so we were all working on one together. The friend that wanted to see mine made 4 of them. She had 4 daughters. She got a lady to quilt hers. My aunt got my granny to do hers and another person was going to do my other friend. Katie passed away and Debi never got her finished blocks back. My is all hand embroidered and hand quilted....but machine pieced. I look back and boy have I come a ways since then with my piecing!!! I think that's over 25 years. Anyone beat that? LOL\

SouthPStitches

My first quilt was a trip around the world. Cardboard templates, every stitch done by hand. I made decent time on the quilt top but discouraged immediately when I started the handquilting. Tossed it in the back of the closet and didn't touch it, or anything else related to quilting for more than 10 years. Hubby and I built a second house and moved into it. My new neighbor encouraged me to jump back into quilting. The rest is truly history!

gin

does not yet finished count -- started one in 1989 and it is still not finished -- maybe I shouldn't be telling on myself!!!!

Knitnoid

That's easy. It's my Double Wedding Ring that I bought the fabric for in September 1989. I think the class was the first week of October. All was going well until it got packed to move the following summer. My biggest issue was accurate cutting, and then back then the stitching. A friend's husband made me acrylic templates which fixed the cutting and then it was a breeze. OK, maybe not a breeze, but at least no longer impossible. I had to go back and fix a few spots to keep it from falling apart before I got it quilted. It's been in the quilting hoop now for 3 or 4 years. I'm not that far from finishing the quilting, I just need to sit down and do it. My goal it to have it done this year -- but admittedly I've been saying that for the past couple of years.

Grace MooreLinker

Well ladies I am ashame to say this but my first quilt took me 35 years to finish. My Mom gave me the hand made butterfly blocks in 1953, I made a quilt out of them in 1988. that is after getting married, 6 kids and +++years of working full time did I finale
sew it. Now I wish I had waited a few more years and had the experence of quilting maybe I would have done a better job on it.
This quilt has been passed down to a grand daughter .

Pete

Thirty years!!!!!!!

justme CA

I don't know if this qualifies for I didn't start the quilt my grandmother did before I was born in the early 1920s or before. After my mother died the top laid in a brown paper bag for more than 40 years. I found it, didn't even know what the pattern was (went to the library and found it was feathered star) took it from California back to the Ozarks to ask relatives about it. My mother had never mentioned it to me.

"Oh your grandmother made quilts for all her daughters and that's the one you were named for! Her name was Sarah Elizabeth and she had 11 children and made quilts all the time." All of this was news to me so I got backing, batting and finished the quilt and had it hand quilted where it all began in Ozark, Missouri. So it was finished in 1987 and begun in about 1919. It had value to me and I started quilting myself but it had no value apparently to my mother for whom it was made.

I have written about the quilt, the woman who made it and my mother's life and times. I still write, quilt, volunteer and garden and I am older than any of the other people I have mentioned. I was inspired by the quilt. But I do NOT hand quilt I only piece and love working with colors. I am a great grandmother 86 myself now!