Celebrating 20 years of quilting

Yes, that's me.

Quilting in the kitchen

New iron for Christmas after the one melted!

This year I am celebrating 20 years of making quilts!

Yes, really in the kitchen

If you ask any quilter, they will have their own story as to how they first got started... and here is mine.

I was in between university courses - having finished an Honours degree and was waiting for the Grad. Dip. Ed. to start (at the time I wanted to work as an Education Officer at the Zoo). I had six months without the Austudy supplement, and I needed an extra job for rent while I lived in a share house. I went for a job interview in South Melbourne and arrived early. While I was waiting I browsed in the newsagent across the street. And there I saw it... an issue of Naive and Country Patchwork, and I fell in love. I decided then, if I got that job I would come back to buy that magazine (I didn't even have a spare $7). I got the job. I bought the magazine with my first pay. I pored over it, I looked up quilt shops in the phone book, and I found a hand piecing class at a shop in Essendon. That was ok, I had a car and a license now, I could drive there. Mum gave me the class and the materials I needed for a special combined birthday and Christmas present. I have never looked back.

To celebrate 20 years of making quilts I hope to show you some of my pre-blog quilts during the year, I plan to challenge myself more rather than follow patterns, and I hope to make a naive and country quilt to commemorate the finding of quilting.

I am excitedly waiting for Project Quilting's first challenge item to be released. I think it's in another 12 hours, as they are 16 hours behind our time. To get ready, I finished sewing the binding on the second last runner. When the quilt shop reopens I will buy enough fabric for binding on the last one.




Not really wanting to start anything else until after Project Quilting, I have been patting this collection of fabrics all day. I found a whole 15 metre bolt of seeded muslin, 4 metres of linen blend with spots about a metre of linen blend with red flowers, a couple of waffle tea towels and fat quarters from the big sale last week.. and here they are all together with some Bronwyn Hayes stitchery patterns. I am going to work them together somehow. It will all just come together!


I will keep going with my Pears for now..... Happy New Year!