My quilt

Here is my quilt. I cut many squares. I then bought more fabric after I got married to make it for a California king bed. We now have a queen. So I may end up taking a couple rows off and make a decorative pillow out of it.

 I love purple.

 I think I picked out the prettiest fabrics too.

Here are the things to make it with. I have other white fabric so I might double up so the thread doesn't show through. I don't think purple threads showing through white cloth would ever look nice.

I started this quilt before I got married. Every house I have lived in I have sewn little squares together. Then I sewed rows of little squares together. Hours and hours have gone into this quilt so far.
I have all kinds of plans on decorating the bed also. Many pillow sham ideas, etc... here's one- sew lots of scrap strips together: I'm still undecided.

I have many memories making this quilt. Of cool spring air blowing through the window while I sewed, of cute cats skittering across scattering loose squares to gallumping big dogs. I have so many dreams for this quilt. But it lies unfinished still. Maybe about 10-12 years I have owned these squares now. I have great plans to now work on it. AND FINISH IT.

I've always had great plans to finish it. And be the first one to finish my quilt.

Me and my sister started our quilts at the same time. 2 teenage sisters bent over fabric cutting squares neither one of us with any idea on how to make a real quilt. Just dreams. My sister got as far as cutting her squares and putting them in a bag perfectly, neatly all stacked up. I still don't know how she stacked them more perfectly than a machine could have! Then she finished school, went to Finland, and  got married, had a baby, got pregnant again, and then gave them to me. She said she'd never have the time to finish it. I was so excited! What a gift! That was a couple years ago. She's now had 3 babies in total.

Lo and behold, I found her squares neatly stacked so perfectly in that same bag she handed them over to me in. That was about a week and a 1/2 before Christmas last year. I saw them and realized they would always be her squares to me. I remember the longing look she had looking at those squares before she handed them to me. I made a goal to finish that quilt. And I did.

Here is her quilt: Didn't she pick out the prettiest color scheme?

 All those little squares I painstakingly sewed together late into every night. Trying to make them match up. Then painstakingly quilting it and cringing every time the fabric would crease under the machine because it was so thick and I had no idea how to make it not shift while sewing and I kept getting stuck with the thousand pins I had tried to use to prevent shifting. So there are permanent little folds sewn into her quilt. :-( Not my best work I'll have to admit, but I still don't know how else it could have been done. Mine will probably be the same unless I learn a new technique before I do it, or hand sew it. But it will probably still happen to mine!

Finally finished quilting:

 The only fabric I had to back it with that wouldn't show through all the threads and seams was my thick plaid fabric. I got the OK from my mom that it would work, and then finished it. I guess it's reversible now!

All finished. She won. Hers was finished before mine, but I just knew every time I saw those squares made into a quilt or not, I'd always think of it as her quilt. And it is. I gave it to her for Christmas 2011. I feel like I cheated. Especially because she bought me a gift- a popcorn popper! And mostly because they were her squares to start with even though I purchased the rest of the materials to finish it with and sewed them together. My mom said it would be a good gift. I sure hope my sister felt the same way!

But now I can make mine!
Trisha.