What you find in the bottom of the closet

Ever since we installed the lovely cherry shelf and quilt hanger in the hallway I have been struggling to find the perfect quilt to display. Finally I decided what I needed was not one perfect quilt, but an array of small quilts to change by the season, the occasion, the whim. It could be my rotating art exhibit. And, since it was in the hall near my bedroom door, guests wouldn't necessarily see it, so I could go wild with color.

I started with my Delectable Mountains Whirligig quilt. It's back from the longarmer and waiting to be bound. I then found a wild teal and orange and yellow basket pattern and pieced a darling, VERY bright small quilt. Then the red/white/blue star that I showed a few days ago. While I was sewing on that quilt I remembered some Thimbleberries projects that I had begun but not completed several years ago. So, I went closet diving.

WELL! What you find in the bottom of the closet! There they were, four seasonal wall quilts (one pieced, the others cut out), my blue "big mistake" quilt (see previous post), a rose applique with yellow floral border and a small pine tree Christmas table topper (half quilted!). If I was looking for wall quilts, I had hit the motherlode.

The Thimbleberries quilts were from, gulp, spring of 2002. The date is right there on the web page I printed with the photos. They were the Thimbleberries Club projects for 2002. I, being cheap, decided that I could draft the pattern and use my Thimbleberries fabric to get the same look as the kits for sale. I had a lot of Thimbleberries leftovers back then. So, I dived into my stash, figured out the patterns, and constructed my own kits. The Club patterns were 60" square; I wanted wall quilts so I shrank them to 42". (It's so handy to be able to draft patterns.) I completed the Christmas quilt but stopped there.

Why, I wondered. There were a lot of reasons. My father-in-law's kidney cancer recurred in his lungs. That spring, my mother-in-law became ill and her brain tumor was diagnosed. My husband was out of town a lot seeing about them. I started working much more overtime at the power plant, and the utility started having more and longer outages as we did some major equipment replacement. My mother-in-law and father-in-law passed away. My mom had health issues. My husband and I did too. I continued to sew, at times only a little, through all of this, but these projects were stored and forgotten.

Now, they look fresh and new to me. I couldn't be more pleased with them if I had happened upon them at the quilt shop yesterday. And best thing of all - no money spent! I know that I have other home-made kits packaged and stored in the bottom of that closet. Enough to keep me busy for quite a while. If only I could quit reading the quilting magazines and getting new ideas!