Look what I found…

Leftovers from the very first quilt I made, started in 2000 and finished in Dec 2002!  I had no idea I had any remnants of that project lurking anywhere.  I found them when I dug though a chest of miscellaneous, seldom used craft things in search of something else.  I forget what it was I was looking for, except for the fact that I didn’t find whatever it was. 

I was just tickled to find these though!  Along with the 4 paper pieced units I found a small amount of leftover fabrics, paper foundations and two tidy envelopes of fabric all cut and stacked in the correct order to make a few more blocks.  The paper foundations were traced by hand on tissue paper.  Half are numbered in my handwriting, and half are in my husband’s writing.  He was supportive of this quilting bug early on.  I’m sure he didn’t realize at the time how badly I’d been bitten!

This was the quilt, made as wedding gift and delivered 1 1/2 years late.  It took longer than I expected to quilt…as all my quilts do, even now.  You’d think I’d be able to estimate my quilting time better than that by now!

It’s interesting to look back at my first quilt.  There are definitely things I would do differently now than I did then regarding colour placement and block distribution, and I think I wouldn’t go quite as light for the light values, but I’m still pleased with my first effort.  I’m going to hold on to the leftovers I found as a souvenir for now.

As for current quilting…there’s not much going on.  I did get a bit of hand quilting done on the Canada Quilt, but my mind went blank trying to figure out what to quilt in the next section so that’s just simmering for now.  I want to piece something new, but I’m feeling guilty about the 3 unquilted flimsies tucked away on my shelves so my machine has stayed quiet.  I guess I need to start basting…

In the meantime, I’m getting a colour fix of a different kind.  I talked my husband into agreeing that the front door could use a pop of colour.  The paint came out of the can rather brighter than I anticipated but it is drying a little darker and I think will look great.  Sneaking a peek from the sidewalk as the first coat of paint dries, I started thinking about the odds of reaching a consensus about painting the shutters to match…Odds are slim, but I can be patient.  It took a year or two to agree on the door!