Sorting my stuff continues and I’m opening every box.  There’s a reason.  Last night after we quit for the night, I went back down to get my laundry out of the dryer. Since I was down there I sorted through a few more boxes.  I opened a box and there was my First Quilt! I’ve been looking for it at least for 15 years to fix it.  I don’t think I’ve seen it since we lived in Alabama. We left there in 1990!

I wonder if the chenille bedspread is in the box?  I haven’t seen it since then either and I quit looking in the box the moment I found the quilt.

I’ve shown this quilt before.  It was a Home Ec project from 1980.  Unfortunately I think I lost it around 1989-1990 when when we were living in Alabama, although I’m still holding into the dream that that it’s in a box in the basement.   If it is I’ll find it in the next two weeks.

A couple of years ago I found the scraps from the quilt.  These have been packed – although I’m not 100% certain which box they are in.  But look at what I discovered last night.

It’s my original drawing for the quilt.  I also have the receipt for the fabric.

$22 in 1980 would be $60 ish dollars today.

I got no credit for the quilting since I didn’t tie the quilt.  But I still got an A on the project.  And yes, I was proud of this quilt.  I used it and washed it to the point the batting was rolling up inside the quilt.  Not enough quilting to keep the two sections of batting together and I didn’t know how to fix it.  Once I gained enough experience to know how to fix it, I realized I had lost the quilt.

But now I have enough information I can recreate the quilt.

Last week before our road trip, my DH and I dug through a ton of boxes in the basement.  We never knew for certain what we would find when we opened a box.  I opened one and found this shoe bag.

It contained the scraps from my first bed size quilt made in April 1980.   I’ve written about the quilt in these two previous posts:

My First Quilt

First Quilt Revisited

Looking at a picture 0f the quilt, it appears that I’m missing a sample of the fabric I used as the petals.

There’s a ‘chunk’ of the green and several larger scraps of the yellow print.  I may just have to revisit this combination again since I haven’t seen the quilt in years.

Back in February, I posted about my First Quilt. It’s still missing in action, but tonight while my husband and I were looking through our box of pictures I uncovered this one.

Here it is on my bed shortly after I finished it. You can clearly see that there’s next to no quilting in it. I also can date the quilt a little more precisely. On the back of the picture I wrote:

My quilt I made in Clothing. 11th grade. Apr 80

Shoot, the first picture I found tonight had it scrunched up on the bed and one of the cats laying on the bed — proof that I still had it and was using it later. Of course I found this pic and then tossed that one back in the box. Now I wish I had kept it out. Flipping back through the box just now I didn’t see it. Oh well. Maybe the next time we dig through our box of pictures.

Judy over at Patchwork Times asked if we remember our first quilt. I do, so I thought I’d tell about it since all I’ve been doing the last couple of days is cleaning up the mess I made making string blocks. Who knew string blocks could be so messy, but that’s for another day.

The picture above is of my first quilt while it was being assembled. I promise it’s really finished, but I don’t have a better picture of it.

My high school offered several different sewing classes: Sewing 101, Tailoring, Family Clothing, and several other classes I can’t remember. I took them all. In Family Clothing, the proejects were clothes/things for others. I’ve got a cute 2T middy dress for a toddler, I made my dad a dress shirt and my mom a blouse in that class. The other project I remember is the quilt.

A 36 inch square quilt, of alternating 9-patches and solid squares, tied, would have met the minimum requirements of the project. But hey, why do something simple — that I wouldn’t be able to use — when I could make a quilt for my bed?

The quilt was designed so the white squares in the second border would sit on the corners of the mattress. The daisy centers and petals in the center and in the cornerstones were machine appliquéd, then the hand quilted around them. The borders were attached with the flip and sew method. There was no other quilting — and that’s where the problem begins.

I used polyester batting, but it wasn’t wide enough. In the picture of the back you can just see where the batt is butted together. I used a whip stitch to hold it together. But after repeated washings, the stitching started coming undone, until the last time I washed it, it came completely loose and bunched up.

At the time, I had no idea how to fix it, or where to take it to get it fixed. It didn’t really fit my king size bed, but I did like it and wanted it fixed ‘someday’. The last time I know I saw it I was living in Montgomery, Alabama about 7 moves and 22-24 years ago (about the age of my oldest UFO).

A couple of years ago I started looking for the quilt to fix it. I’m confident in my skills now, that I can fix it — if only I can find it. I’ve looked for it on and off for the last couple of years with no luck. I’m hoping it’s a case of I haven’t opened the correct box, and not that it got lost on one of our moves. I’m rather certain I did not deliberately get rid of it.

That’s the story of my first quilt. What’s yours?