I started seriously quilting 30 years ago. That’s a long time for me to work continuously at a skill. The only things I’ve done longer than that are sew clothing, knit and play the piano. I’ve come a long way in 30 years, just like I’ve come a long way from when I started to knit and when I started piano lessons.

I can still remember my first trip to the Dallas Quilt show. I don’t know the year, probably was early 90’s sometime, but what I do remember was having my breath taken away by a quilt. It was a log cabin block with appliquéd floral wreaths on them. It spoke to everything in quilting that appeals to me and I immediately signed up for the block of the month kits for the quilt. I got the first one and started right away and it didn’t take long for me to realize I was in way over my head. The piecing of the blocks wasn’t bad, but the hand appliqué was awful. I knew I had the option to do machine applique, but that’s not what I wanted for this quilt. I wanted hand work to go along with the bits of embroidery that were incorporated in the patterns.

I collected all the block kits and set them aside a long time ago. Many lifetimes ago actually, many houses, many moves and several states ago if I am really honest. There were times I wasn’t sure if I even still had it, but it wasn’t something I would have gotten rid of if I had come across it while downsizing.

This past weekend, I worked more on unpacking my sewing room. I am down to 16 boxes and this is the closest to being unpacked than I’ve been in a very long time. I was getting down to the bottom of a box when a green fabric caught my eye. It was my Log Cabin Wreath kits. I pulled them out of the box and it looks like they are all there, including the one that I started and put away all those years ago. The green fabric is very dated now. It’s very early 90’s quilting, if you know what I mean. The background fabric is fine, and most of the fabrics for the wreaths are fine, but I will probably update the green. Actually, what I might do is keep some of that green, as a nod to the original project, but make the green part scrappy and add in a number of other fabrics.

I am positive now, that my skills have matured to the point where I can do this project justice. The patterns gave me the same jolt of excitement that they did all those years ago. I am beyond excited that I still have them after all these years, and I cannot wait to get started on this project. I know I have 85 billion projects already in work but this one has been waiting for a very long time.