3-D Pinwheel Quilt

My first ever pieced quilt top.

I love that it is perfectly imperfect showing my piecing skill improvement over the years.

This quilt top has hidden from me for close to 25 years!  

I didn’t start making quilts until 9 years ago.  I was under the greatly misunderstood impression that quilts had to be free-motion quilted with a design or tied.  How silly is that!  I’ve done free-motion on many small quilted pieces, but I don’t enjoy it.  So I knew I’d never machine quilt this top.  It would have to be tied.  Although that wasn’t really appealing either, it would be what I would do.

This quilt top got carefully folded and set aside.  Then we moved.  And moved again.  This quilt top never made it’s way out of the storage bin that it was put into to move...and move again.

Over the last 9 years, I’ve searched for this quilt top a few times.  Because I finally woke up to the fact that I could quilt it in any design I wanted to.  Including straight line quilting.  Not finding it anywhere, I have been kicking myself for obviously giving it to the thrift shop thinking I’d never quilt it.  I went through the kicking myself every time I looked for it.  And I kept looking occasionally because I wasn’t absolutely sure that I had given it away.

During the last 2 years I have slowly worked at sorting and purging my stuff-burdened life.  A couple of months ago I finally began to notice the progress and I went at it whole hog in the basement.  At the very end of storage bins to sort through, buried at the bottom of the bin was this quilt top!!!  Can you even imagine my surprise?

The top is cheaply made.  The pinwheels and black sashing are broadcloth.  Did I hear shocked gasps?  Well, it was what I could afford at the time.  And could not afford batting and backing at the time.  Which was another reason the top was carefully folded and set aside.  

I’m not hard on my quilts, so I expect even broadcloth is going to last a good long time in my possession.  I won’t treat it any different than the quilts I’ve made with quilt shop fabrics.  

At the bottom of that storage bin was another surprise.  It was my daughter’s very first ever quilt top that she sewed.  She would have been about 10 or 11 years old at the time.  I told her I’d quilt it for her.  She’s not taking after her mother or grandmother or great grandmother with an interest for sewing.  Her quilt top is next under the needle as I cannot have unfinished projects lying around.

I still can’t believe I had enough patience to cut and fold all those 3-D pinwheel pieces!  I’m not sure I would even consider doing that these days.