First And Last Sandie Lush

My first quilt was completed in early 1990 and was made out of necessity. I'd always had a keen interest in crafts but this had been confined to knitting, counted cross stitch and the occasional stint of dressmaking. Before getting married, I had never even seen a patchwork quilt, let alone thought about making one.

 My sister-in-law in Massachusetts was an avid quilter who had spent years trying to get me interested in quilt making. When our first son was born she sent him a Log Cabin cot quilt which rapidly became his source of comfort. When our second son arrived, she sent him a lovely Trip Around the World quilt which, unfortunately, was far too big for the cot. The eldest son had hysterics when we suggested he swap quilts, but also insisted this new brother needed a smaller quilt.

Not intending to spend any money on what was to be a ‘one off’ project, I decided to use some cotton dress fabric left over from the 1970s. One of the fabrics was printed with a crazy patchwork design, so rather than cut it up, I used this whole as a backing. I found some coordinating striped fabric which I cut into strips along the pattern and assembled into squares each made of three strips. For the first couple of squares, I marked my cutting lines in biro. This was not a success. I must have made about six squares before I realised there were several ways these could be put together to make the strips give different patterns. By twelve squares I was totally hooked and started planning my next quilt!