First Quilt - Last Quilt - A Parade of Quilts

I think I am too late, but I am going to join this parade anyway. On my own if I have to. Camille and Carrie are hosting a Parade of Quilts! How fun! I went to their site and discovered that I could not leave a comment or join in at this time any more. Oh, well. I have always been known to walk to the beat of my own drummer, so here goes.....We are supposed to show a photo of the first quilt we ever made and also a photo of the last quilt we made. And talk about what we learned - or something like that.

Here is the first quilt I ever made. Sorry about the sunshine! I had to take the photo when my DD was here because I could not spread it out on the lawn without her help. I took a quilting course sometime in the middle of the 1990's. It was my introduction to quilting! I had no idea what colours to choose for my quilt. We made one block a week. All sewing was done by hand because there was not enough room to plug sewing machines in anywhere. I made a few extra blocks in between classes. I was a real keener. When all the blocks were done and all the sashing and borders were hand-stitched in place, I put this baby away in a dark closet. I just couldn't face having to actually quilt it. About 10 years later my Guild asked me to be Quilter of the Month. I decided to finish this quilt in order to show my beginnings. I also used it to practice on. It is hand quilted in places and machine quilted in others. But I got it done! This is my latest quilt. It is hanging in my DD's front entrance. I think I probably used some of the fabrics that were in the first quilt. I have learned a lot since that first project. The "Winterberries" is my own design. It is machine pieced, hand appliqued and machine quilted. I originally thought that quilting had to be done a certain way. Now I realize that anything goes. Anything that I can draw can be hand appliqued. I love my hobby!