A fabric company produced a collection of fabrics based upon the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) historical quilts.  Mom was very active in DAR, so Melanie and I decided it would be fun to buy the collection, divide up the fabrics and each make a quilt from them.  Melanie bought the fabric, divided it up and sent me my portion.  When I opened the package and saw the fabric I was dismayed at the drab colors.  I called Melanie and asked her what she thought.  She agreed with me, but went ahead because it was a project with Mom.  Shortly thereafter Mom called and was thrilled with the beautiful fabrics, so we were on.  Months went by and none of us had started our quilt, so when we were together at Christmas we cut the fabrics into squares and decided that each of us would make three copies of a dozen nine-patches and give a set to each of the others.  We would each have 36 identical blocks.  From there we would create our own designs.

When I finished my quilt I wanted to quilt it quickly, but do it myself, so I looked for a method to accomplish this.  I found a reference to a “utility stitch” that was used in olden days to hold utilitarian quilts together.  I bought some #5 perle cotton thread and did 1/4” in and out stitches along the sashing, with a little embellishment here and there.  When I was finished I loved the result and it has become my signature quilting style.  Since then I have been using #8 hand-dyed threads that I get from artfabrik.com.