1997 and 1998 Friendship Quilts

Continuing on in the vein of my quilt group's yearly block exchange, I thought I would share over the next few days the quilts that we have done. It's always so nice to go back and reminisce who I quilted with in that particular year.

My friend and I joined this group of ladies after many false starts of getting other groups going. We settled in and the next year, 1997, we decided to do a block exchange. Very simple, we just fused a heart on a homespun rectangle and signed it. Then we added our own stitching to it and added other blocks of hands, etc. It's bittersweet to look at this quilt, as two of the ladies have passed away. But I remember them with fond memories. Barb reminded me so much of Aunt Clara on Bewitched. She was a bit scattered, but such a dear person. :) brings a smile to my face just thinking about her. Marilyn is the other one that is gone, and boy, do I remember her! She made the best pies in town. We loved it when the meeting was at her house because you knew you were in for some good eatin'! I was always so impressed with Marilyn, she mostly did traditional quilts, but when one of the younger ones in the group would bring something new in to share, she wanted to learn how to do it. We taught her paper piecing, Stack 'n Whack, stack 'n slash and much more. I always hoped that when I reached her age, I'd be just as eager to learn the new stuff too. Barb and Marilyn---you are remembered with very fond memories--I miss you.

1998--this is the year that we decided to do something a bit different. I had been swapping blocks on line with other quilters, unknown to me, and my group was fascinated by that. So we decided to something similar. We decided to do a Star theme. We were to each pick out a Star pattern that we wanted to make for everyone. Then we put our fabric in a box and sent it around the group. Each month we were to return the box, with the block we just made for that person from their fabric, to the next person in line. It continued all year. And what different quilts we ended up with in the end. We all set ours differently and used different colors. I was originally going to make this for my daughter, as she was going to have a blue/yellow bedroom. By the time I got all the blocks back, she changed her mind, so the blocks went back on the shelf. I had designed this setting in EQ, so saved it and didn't think about it again. In 2004, when I opened my Studio (www.kquilts-studio.com) , I wanted to hang all my group quilts together, when I realized that I was missing 1998. So, I found my pattern, hauled out the blocks and put it together. I took it to my Amish friend that lives about 20 minutes from me to hand quilt. She did a beautiful job as usual.