Third Saturday of January 2021

For "Hang Your Quilt Day" this month, the theme was "New Beginnings". I struggled to interpret what that meant. Does the theme mean the first quilts I ever made? Those are pretty raggedy now. Is it the first time I tried a new technique? Does it represent a first in the life of the recipient? I decided on a mixed interpretation of "New Beginnings" – an interpretation based on "firsts". Shown four at a time and then as pairs, from left to right the quilts are:

• Traveling Mandala
• Dan's T-Shirt Quilt
• Doll Quilt
• Tricky Ts

Traveling Mandala (23" x 23")

This small wall hanging was my first completion of a project in paper piecing taken from a class. The blog post dated 6/7/15 describes its completion. It is the newest of the quilts displayed.

Dan's T-Shirt Quilt (55"w x 75"h)

A T-shirt quilt from my older son's pre-college and pre-marriage days marks a beginning into his adult life since he has been married nine years now and is a father of four. His high school graduation was in 2001 - two decades ago and before my blog had begun so I was hard pressed to locate any references about it. I can cite a 2/1/18 blog post where I discuss my point of view on the merits of future T-Shirt quilts.

I know one big tub holds batting pieces and two hold many many T-shirts that I resolve some day to make into quilts for my daughter and my younger son. That resolve is wavering since the T-shirt quilt I did make for the older son has been left home indefinitely, no nostalgia for it in his adult life, now married with wife and children. I suspect that my daughter and younger son have also moved beyond those memories. Sometimes I think it is the mom, not the T-shirt wearer, who hangs on the longest. I am leaning toward abandoning the concept of making two other T-shirt quilts, thus reducing guilt.

Doll Quilt (54"w x 61"h)
The blocks in this quilt were made by members of my very first quilt guild, Piecemakers in Livermore. I took my very first class in FMQ from a teacher my daughter knew in Oklahoma shortly after she quilted this. For closeups on her FMQ of this quilt, completed on a domestic machine, not a longarm, visit posts dated 2/20/13, 2/5/13, and for completion of the quilt itself visit posts dated 3/13/13 and 1/9/14. 

Tricky Ts (59"w x 79"h)
This quilt was made from from a pattern out of  my first quilting book, the classic Quilts, Quilts, Quilts by Diane McClun and Laura Nownes using bandanas. It is rather ragged from daily use by my older son during his middle school and high school years. Also bandanas were a rather thin and not a very durable fabric choice but it did add a bit of fun to have included the text printed on them. The fabric dyes from those years were not stable and the background turned from black to brown with age. Tricky Ts predates my quilt blog DianeLoves2Quilt so I have no further history on it. But I still have it! It did not go with my older son when he left home and went off to college.

Baby Quilts (not hung)
Could the "New Beginnings"theme mean baby quilts? This thought entered my mind having just been blessed earlier in the week with a sixth grandchild, a new granddaughter, Irene, born January 11, 2021, weighing 8 lb 11 oz. If the theme means baby quilts I have none to show. I have given them all away to the babies and I have not completed Irene's yet. Here are the first quilts of the first five grandchildren. I cannot hang them out, but I have pictures.

Hang Your Quilt Day Beginnings

Beginning April 2020, my quilt guild members began a tradition of hanging quilts in the front of their homes on the third Saturday of the month as a source of enjoyment for the community and as a thank you for the essential workers during the pandemic. My initial post about this practice is dated 4/22/20.