Way-Back Wednesday - 2

Welcome back for a second helping of Way-Back Wednesday. Today I have a quilt that I hand pieced back in 1988. I remember this one because it was the summer of our drought, and we lived in a little 1000-square foot house with no trees and no air conditioning. It was a sauna in that house. We got in the habit that summer of packing up the kids (we just had 2 at the time), and going off for the day to sit at the KofC hall in Chillicothe where my DH was an active member. He took KofC work he had to do, I took stitching and the kids took toys, bikes and trikes. We made it through the miserable summer's extreme heat and sun this way.

This collage gives you a glimpse of the blocks. I call this an Ohio Star, although I have also seen it called Variable Star, so I don't know technically which it is. I selected it because I could use two fabrics per star and end up with a variety of scrappy stars. That top left star is my very first one. I loved those two calicoes and was so pleased with the result. I had just a small stash back then and I leaned toward calico prints; I had great fun matching up pairs. Every once in a while, I remember thinking that some particular combinations would have made a pretty quilt in just those 2 fabrics. I still think a 2-color quilt in this pattern would be fun to do.

The setting squares were hand-pieced to the blocks and I think I even hand-stitched all the rows together. While I am fuzzy on the extent of the hand-piecing, I definitely remember being somewhat stymied by the cutting of setting and corner triangles, since I'd set this on point. I think what I did was lay the top down on some muslin and cut a side and corner triangle, then used them as templates to cut the rest. (I was quite the novice!)

My dear grandmother quilted it for me, and I have used it on our beds off and on over the years. I would say that for the last 15 years it has been stored. So all the wear you see occurred in the first half of its life.

On this double bed you can see that it is quite large. You can also see that I opted to forego borders. I do not recall the why or why not on borders.

That is the extent of my recollection on this quilt from my early years. I have learned a lot since 1988, both about quilting and about life!

Happy Quilting, Friends!