All the Vintage Ladies

It was 2005, the year I started quilting. And this, my friends, is the very first quilt I started. Thirteen years! It took me thirteen years to finish this tiny quilt!

And do you know why?

Because I ran out of black fabric for the outer border. And then once I finally bought more (years later), I didn't know what binding to use. And I had no idea how I wanted to quilt it.

So, I just kept it in the closet for 13 years.

I remember finding this fabric at the store near my house and I HAD to have it! Vintage ladies smoking and drinking martinis?! I thought it would make the best, most inappropriate baby quilt ever. I didn't have a baby to give it to, but I knew someday I'd have cool friends who'd make cool parents who would love a non-traditional baby quilt.

I was reading a lot of quilting websites back then and found a tutorial for these diamond borders. I thought they would work well with the fabric and continue the retro theme.

To this day, I have no idea how I managed to match those diamonds so nicely! I remember I was using 1/2" seams and I used to mark every seam with tracing paper. That had to help! Thankfully, I got over both of those habits pretty quickly.

In the end, this quilt was not destined for a baby with cool parents, but for a cool parent herself. My friend Linda saw it and loved it and now this piece of my treasured past lives in her house. Her cool husband thinks it's cool too!