Quilt Showcase: Pinwheel Friendships

Once a month, we will try to showcase a quilt from one of our MPS members.  Whether we’ve been quilting for decades or are just beginning our quilting journey, we are a talented bunch; and we inspire each other regularly with the many wonderful quilts that are created.  So it seems fitting that we showcase a quilt in hopes it will inspire others.  (You can click on any of the images to see a larger view.)

Pinwheel Friendships

If you ever needed a reminder that quilts hold more than just fabric and thread, Pinwheel Friendships is it. Cydney’s beautiful quilt won Best of the Silver Linings category at the Metropolitan Patchwork Society’s quilt show on March 8, 2025 — and once you hear the story, you’ll know exactly why.

This quilt is made up of 361 pinwheels! All the blocks finish at 4 inches and were paper pieced years ago using the notion “Triangles on a Roll.” Seventeen years ago, Cydney’s small quilt group — an offshoot of the original Undercover Quilters art quilt group — did a pinwheel exchange. The blocks sat in a bin all this time, patiently waiting their moment.

The original plan for the sashing came from a similar quilt Cydney once saw in a catalog; but the original basket weave design would have meant tackling hundreds of dreaded Y-seams. So into the UFO bin it went until her MPS small group (Ladies of the Cloth) launched a UFO challenge last year. A perfect Riley Blake stripe replaced the complicated basket weave idea, and the quilt came together surprisingly fast. Half the vertical strips were sewn at a retreat, the rest arranged carefully at home on a design wall. Even the binding carries meaning — it’s made from leftover polka dot fabric from some of the original pinwheels.

Cydney entered Pinwheel Friendships into the Silver Linings category as a tribute to her Undercover group — whom she regards as “8 very best friends” who have quilted, laughed, and comforted each other for 25 years and counting. She can still spot each friend’s blocks by their fabric choices. While two friends have passed on and another lives with dementia, the quilt is a “silver lining” of memories stitched together over decades of friendship.

Of all the quilts Cydney’s made, this one holds her heart. And isn’t that the real magic of quilting — a patchwork of friendship, stitched together forever?

Do you have a quilt like this that holds special memories?  Let us know in the comments below.