Beginnings

Hi, I'm Elizabeth. You can call me Betty.

I'm starting this blog as a way to chronicle my quilt life, and especially beginning now with Bonnie Hunters Celtic Solstice mystery quilt.

I'm a fairly new quilter. Back in 1995 at the age of 20, I saw the movie How to Make an American Quilt. I didn't really think much of the movie at the time, but quilting threw an arrow straight through my heart. I love history, and quilting seems like such a connection with past. I decided to give it a try. I didn't know anyone else who quilted, so I tried to learn from books and quilt magazines. My attempts were not so great, but I enjoyed it. Here are a couple things I had done then. I never even backed the quilt.

In the next couple of years I met a guy, fell in love, got married and we started a family. I thought about quilting occasionally, but the only attempt I made was starting a simple scrappy quilt with squares. I just finished it this past year.

Fast forward 17 years and our family made a big cross country move from California to Virginia. It was a great move, and we love it here, but with no friends or family nearby, I had a little more free time. I decided to try quilting again. I started with a little lap size rag quilt. It turned out ok, not great, but ok. I was hooked again.

My next project was the 2012 Craftsy Block of the Month. I was a year behind, so all the clues were up and I finished piecing it in about a month.It's still not backed and quilted though.

From the Craftsy quilt I decided to make a whole quilt using one of the blocks, rotating the squares for a whole new look. I have no idea why I chose to do curved pieces for a beginning quilt, but I did it!

I have worked on a few more quilts and somewhere along the way I discovered Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville.

I love her scrappy quilts, and she does Quiltcam's occasionally which are so fun! I bought her book Adventures in Leaders and Enders and decided to do her Blue Ridge Beauty quilt.

There are some mistakes, like blocks facing the wrong direction, but I am not a perfectionist, and they are going to stay that way. I don't think I personally could be a quilter if I was a perfectionist. It would drive me insane. But I am improving each time, and I know each project will be better then the last.

Now on to the Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt!