The Very First Quilt I Made

The first.  I hand pieced and hand quilted this quilt from about 1991-1993.  I didn't work on it all the time but got bored with the quilting and only sewed on it occasionally.  I found the patten in an old quilt book.  In that particular book it was called Monkey Wrench-- often I've seen that name used with a different pattern and this one called Bachelor's Puzzle.  That's old quilt blocks for you though -- one name in one area and a different one in a different area.

Before piecing this, I worked on a couple of nine patch blocks then threw them aside and decided to make a whole quilt.  There really isn't a great deal of piecing in it if you notice...every other block is solid.  The quilting is simple diagonal lines at one inch apart.  Since hand quilting starts in the middle of a quilt, my stitches got better by the time I got to the sides!

A few things about this first quilt:  At the time the choice in battings was thin polyester, medium polyester, and ultra-loft polyester (sort of like a comforter).  The polyester fibers migrate through the fabric and make little polyester hairs on the quilt -- not badly, but they are there.  I wanted a quilt like the old fashioned ones that were flat as a pancake and all crinkly.  It wasn't till years later I found that cotton batting creates that look.  Also, I used the dimensions in the book.  Old quilts didn't drape off the bed sides much at all, so it isn't big enough for a full bed by today's standards; however, it fits a twin alright, and son #1 uses it.



Shown on full size bed but edges only drape a few inches

I made quilts off and on during the 90's but wasn't happy with a lot of the fabric choices.  There were too many calicoes for my taste...and dark ones at that.  Now there's almost too much to choose from for quilts!  (And not for clothes).

Sometimes I look back at stuff I've made and wonder why I made certain choices or why I thought it would look good, but not with this quilt.  I still love my choice of pattern and color with this one!

Note:  Thursday when this posted a few people wrote some nice comments -- on Friday Blogger went down for the morning and afternoon,  when it came back up all the comments were gone -- (I didn't delete them!)