Parade of Quilts

I thought I would start a series of blogs showcasing quilts and projects I have made.  I have not been good about taking pictures of my early quilts, especially those I have given away.  This is a quilt I made in 1991 for my in-laws.  I saw a quilt in a magazine where they had taken the names in a family and created a crossword layout.  They filled in the open areas with quilt blocks.  This was quite adventuresome for me back at this time.  This was pre Bernina.  At this point in my life, I had never "quilted" a quilt.  My mother taught me to tie the layers together because it was faster than quilting.  At the time, I had a brother in law who was expecting a child, so I had to wait for the child to be born to find out the name to start piecing the top.  This was also before I had an embroidery machine so all of the letters were made with fabric paint and a stencil.  I cut out each square of fabric with a painted letter to piece them together.  I also made the quilt with a medallion to sit on top of a full size bed and a large border to make the quilt big enough for the bed.  So many things I did "wrong" with this quilt but it makes me smile to see how far I have come from that time.  Since that time, our family has grown and many more names could be added but it was a fun project.