After years of needing something on my fireplace, I finally had the idea to make a quilt to hang there. My mother had been wanting me to quilt for years, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by making a quilt. Mom helped me choose fabric. The first fabric I chose was the medium blue “feathered” fabric; then I learned how to choose lights and darks to go with it. Mom had to calculate the resize of the “logs” so the quilt would fit the fireplace. Then she returned to her home in Eastern Washington and left me to it. This took about 5 years to finally get finished. Mom thought I’d enjoy hand-quilting it; but I didn’t enjoy hand-quilting at all. I finally decided to just stitch in the ditches to get it finished. Dad installed the hooks into the bricks, and the quilt has been hanging there for almost 20 years. I still love the quilt, and even enjoy the unmatched seams in it. It makes it look more homey to me.

In 2012, I decided to take the Craftsy Block of the Month workshop taught by Amy Gibson of Stitchery Dickery Dock. I had begun hand-dyeing fabric and thought this would be a great way to use some of it up. I purchased the purple Shadow-Play by Moda for my background fabric. The quilt is backed with flannel. I learned many new quilting techniques during this Block of the Month, and Amy was a fun instructor.
Because I wanted to learn free-motion quilting, I decided to quilt it myself. It was fun coming up with a design for each different block.
This has become my favorite quilt. It hangs on a quilt rack in the great room where I can grab it when I want to feel cozy. (It’s great for nap-taking!) It goes with me to all the retreats as a back-up blanket, and has even travelled a time or two with me in our travel trailer.

In 2014, Oregon was celebrating what would have been the 100th birthday of William Stafford. He had been Oregon’s Poet Laureate from 1975 to 1990. One of my small group members, Becky, suggested that we each choose one of Stafford’s poem and make a quilt inspired by the poem.
I chose the Poem titled “One Evening”. This poem was so visual and was also meaningful to me.
I had taken a class at Sisters, Oregon from Karla Alexander called, “Inner Circles”, and I knew the technique would work for this quilt. Using my hand-dyed fabric, I tried to create an abstract picture of what Stafford was describing. And I printed the poem on fabric to piece to the front.
This quilt was definitely a challenge for me, but it was enjoyable trying different techniques when putting this quilt together. It hangs in the stairwell; and I will occasionally stop and re-read the poem as I am ascending or descending the stairs to or from my sewing studio.