(Pause to say here that I put quotes around the word spring, because in Singapore (80 miles north of the equator) the weather never really changes. It is between 75-95 degrees 365 days a year. With humidity. Lots of humidity. Every Day.)
(But the weather in Singapore really isn't the point of this post.)
(Back to the point.)
The class was learning how to quilt. I thought it sounded like a fun thing to do. I had wanted to make a quilt, but had no idea where to start. So that summer when I was in the US, I bought fabrics for the quilt we were going to make.
Here is the very first quilt I ever made:
The quilt pattern is called Dancing Dollies.
So are you thinking what I'm thinking? Doesn't really look like a beginning quilt? I agree! Except for joining the blocks and rows and borders together, this was constructed all by hand. I just don't know what that instructor was thinking. But I did learn a lot, that's for sure!
I originally had intentions of hand quilting this. Good intentions.
Last October we got to spend a weekend in Chicago with my friend, Jackie and her husband. (It had been a long time since I had seen her and so good to be together again.) After that weekend I got to thinking about my Dancing Dollies quilt. I still hadn't completed it. I decided to give up my fantasy of hand quilting it. (Jackie's quilt was big enough for a twin size bed. Mine is 60"x75". Jackie made her entire quilt by hand, including the quilting. So impressive!) I searched for someone with a long-arm sewing machine. I found someone about 30 miles away. I took the quilt to her in February and she finished it the end of May. I totally love how she quilted it!
This was the very first block I made. If you know anything about quilting, you know that triangles are not easy. Most beginning blocks consist of rectangles or squares.
Just some close-ups of some of the blocks. The teacher had patterns for several different blocks that we could choose from. This is definitely a sampler quilt. A little of this, a little of that. Some piecing, some applique.
The instructor of the class was from Australia. (Her husband was a pilot for Singapore Airlines.) I think there were five of us in the class. I remember that we all spoke English, but there were four pretty distinct accents. There was Australian, two ladies were from the UK, Jackie and I were Americans from the Midwest, and there was an American who was from North Carolina. So funny to hear us all sitting around talking with our different accents and different sayings. The instructor would walk around the room (we met in her apartment which overlooked the Singapore Straits. It was cool to watch the ships in the ocean), and she would ask, "How're you going?" Sometimes it made me giggle.
I started the class on September 28, 1999. I finished the quilt on June 27, 2012. Almost 13 years.
But it's DONE!
