Tulip Stand

This quilt has been hiding under a bench up in my bonus room for several years.  I used to keep it folded and laying over the arm of the chair up there but it was rare that anyone used it to keep warm while watching TV.  It's cotton, not cozy flannel, and was just a little too big (72" x 88") to easily fold back up and put away after using. 

I purchased the fabric from "The Stitching Post" in Sisters, OR back in the mid 90's.  This shop is famous in the quilting community for it's yearly quilt show the second Saturday in July.  Thousands of crazy quilters flock to the small town to view hundreds of quilts out on display.  I've never been to the show but have visited the store many times and always purchase a little something.  I really felt like I had ventured out of my comfort zone when I bought the border print and the light green leaf fabric.  I even bought a turquoise print to use for the inner border.  You have to look closely to even see the turquoise color in the larger print.  But when it came time to attach it, I couldn't do it and went to a local store to purchase something more conservative.  From a distance you can hardly tell it's not the same as the tulip fabric.

This quilt sat partly completed for several years.  Soon after we moved to our current house in 1999 (and I had a designated sewing room), we had some kind of church activity here.  Sue Doty attended and said she liked my quilts and wanted to look at my patterns and make something small.  I helped her make a Christmas table runner and she later took some classes and we have made several quilts together.  She became a great friend and helping her with that project really got me excited to do more quilting.  This is the first thing I pulled out and finished.  Everything you have seen on my blog thus far has come after this.  I guess I had some quilts around or she wouldn't have asked me for help, but I was not nearly as productive back then.

In fact I used to have a goal to finish one quilt per year.  That's about all you can do when you have little ones running around that need your attention.  But that is one of the things I like about quilting.  You can do a little bit one day and it doesn't have to be redone the next day (or week), like cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.  And if you stick with it, eventually you have something to show for your effort.

The pattern is from the book "At Home with Thimbleberries Quilts" by Lynette Jennings.  I did the quilting myself back when I was only comfortable quilting "in the ditch".  The quilting holds everything together but doesn't really add any dimension or interest to the finished product.  I hesitate to even include a picture of the back, but I always like to turn a quilt over and see what's there so there you go.  Not too impressive.

Well, I've surprised myself.  I didn't think I would have anything to say about this quilt, but I guess each one brings back some kind of memories - all good.