For almost a whole year, I’ve been sewing two new quilt blocks every month (more or less). I began Craftsy’s Block of the Month quilting class last winter. Of course I blogged about it! Last February, I wrote about my new quilting project in the post “Like Mom and Dad“. Many of you know my mom was an avid quilter. When she was alive, I didn’t have much interest in helping her quilt. I helped her pick out fabric a couple of times, but she did all the work; the cutting, the sewing, the quilting. She made crib quilts for Lily and Emmy; they still use them all the time. Grandma’s quilts help the girls remember Grandma.

When I stumbled on the Craftsy Block of the Month class, I decided to try quilting on my own. My very first block was a slashed block, the Asterisk. This block was fairly easy for me, a novice quilter, to complete. It gave me the courage to keep on going!

And when I read class descriptions like “English Paper Piecing”, “Dresden Plates” and “Curved Piecing”, I needed a little courage. I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to sew any of those quilt blocks! Not only am I a beginner at quilting, I also don’t sew very much.
But I kept at it, because every time I chose the fabric for my block and cut the pieces, every time I assembled the block like a puzzle and stitched it all together, I understood why my mom loved quilting so much.

The Ohio Star Block was one of my favorites to make; learning how to make quarter square triangles was so much fun!

The curved pieced blocks were very challenging, but not as hard to make as I thought they would be.

Visually, I just fell in love with the Circle of Geese. It is a paper pieced block that was very time consuming but also fun to make.
And so now, I have twenty completed blocks. Now comes the hard part: finishing the quilt!

And finishing this quilt–adding a border, quilting, and binding it– is the only thing on my bucket list this winter! I’m going to do it–just wait and see!

