Flushed with the success of my very first "real" quilt, I developed a serious crush on quilting. I immediately rushed into buying quilting accessories, a new, somewhat intimidating sewing machine, adding quilting cottons to my stash and buying quilting magazines in a somewhat frenzied mania.

None of it was necessarily helpful, of course.

For my next project, I decided that I wanted to make a throw for the couch in "Shadys" (our finished basement "bar" which we call Shady's Let Down Lounge or "Shady's" for short.) The couch was pretty sad looking and I thought a cover for it would be a great idea.

I had been to a fabric sale at The Textile Museum and while there picked up a pre-printed fabric panel that was Southwest in theme. I decided to fussy cut the panel into two pillow sized squares, which I then made into pillow tops, and motif quilted the panels.





Because this was early in my quilting life and I was still learning about all kinds of things, now I would quilt those panels differently - probably doing outline quilting at the very least or trying some stippling or even channel quilting, but I was new to it all, and in retrospect, I realize now that I was more interested in producing finished products and trying out new stuff then in making the things well.

I needed a third cushion so I made one using my newly acquire software called "The Quilting Wizard". It was barely out of the packagaing before I knew that I wanted something with more bells and whistles, but I have nevethless used it to good effect since then,early on producing my first two projects, this pillow:




and the throw, below. On that pillow, I tried out some free-motion swirls as well as some barely discernible motif quilting on the little cacti, and finally, the above mentioned throw:



Although the cushions are in current use; sadly, this throw became my first UFO (unfinished object). I disliked it so very much when it was done that I stopped at about the 97% finished mark. The quilt itself I stiched i the ditch, but as I pinned the binding, I realzied, 'I hate this quilt".

Nearly a year later, I've learned enough to rescue it (I hope) and though that will be an upcoming project, it will never be one of my favourites. I learned so much with this quilt, not least that seemingly elusive lesson about accurate cutting and seaming, but also, translating patterns to reality, remembering to add a seam allowance when designing and accurate measuring of the object in question. (I'm smiling as I type that sentence.) Apparently, "guestimating" quilt sizes doesn't work.

Huh.

At any rate, the quilt was an excellent lesson, one that I may revist soon as I add a bigger border to the original, already quilted piece and regret past decisions as I do so!