The inspiration for this quilt came from one of the blocks of the month for the 2010-2011 Guild season. The night we were handed the block pattern I immediately thought of Emma. While I was at the meeting this photo was posted on Facebook. I took it as a sign.

It took a long time to complete, but I was happy with the results. I’ve learned from my Guild friends that a quilt should always have a matching pillowcase.

I used a lot of straight lines for the quilting, but the flower templates nearly drove me mad. They were the last straw for my “old” sewing machine and I was so happy to welcome Ruby to my studio.

I was nice to see Emma enjoying her quilt in all sorts of ways – she slept under it, she played on it, and she even drew pictures of it!

This was one of the offerings for October’s Project Tuesday at the Guild.

It took me most of two days to finish the wall hanging. I hadn’t paid enough attention to how the leaves were stitched to the background, but I managed to get the job done. I tacked my leaves together and also stitched each leaf around the center circle.

At the Guild demo night on the Thursday following the Tuesday session, I watched another, more experienced quilter tacking down her leaves. She tacked each leaf to the background (at the bottom and the top) with a stitch that was hidden under each leaf. Another quilter (a former teacher) suggested that an uneven number of leaves was probably more artistic, and that you would want the leaves to overlap somewhat to give a better 3-D affect.

I decided then and there that I would take mine apart and do it again. I’m much happier now with the final product.

This was an option at our Tuesday project bee in September. I experimented with a variety of machine applique stitches on these pieces. I now have a better understanding of what stitch works best for particular curves and lines.

I’ve admired String Quilts online (particularly Bonnie Hunter’s) for a long time and decided that for my first Community Quilt that is what I would do. I started the project at the Guild’s Community Quilt weekend in the Spring. I didn’t have enough of my own strings, but I received a bag full from a couple of Guild members.

I quilted the piece with straight lines in the center and a bit of a scallop in the border.

I had extra blocks so I cut them up and used them for the binding. This made the binding very thick, and I don’t think I’d do it that way again.