And then,

When we got back to Michigan, I found an older lady to hand quilt the top for me. We then used that quilt on our bed for almost 40 years. It got pretty raggedy toward the end. I finally tossed it when we moved into Kalamazoo from the farm in 2000. Now, I wish I had kept it, or at least taken a decent pic of it before getting rid of it. Heavy sigh.

Shortly after that, I offered to make a quilt for my Mom. She chose a black print, and a pink solid for the background. I picked a quilt pattern called Star and Crescent. Now, you can tell that I had no friends who were quilters, because if I had, they would have told me I was flat out crazy to choose a design with such steep curves for my second quilt top. But, in blissful ignorance, I went ahead and repeated the process I'd followed with the first quilt top--making templates, marking all the pieces, cutting them out, etc., and proceeded to piece the quilt. I then layered it, using a flannel sheet instead of batting, and quilted it all by hand, which made it my very first completed quilt entirely done by me. The picture above isn't very good, but you can see the steep curves. I'm the fluffy lady on the left. The pic was taken at our quilt guild meeting. I was the Quilter of the Month, and brought in all my quilts to share with the guild members. It was fun! Perhaps your quilt guild would like to do this--feature one of you each month, so that the others can see your quilts and learn more about you and your work.