Back in the year of 1995, I entered into a challenge with my local quilt guild.  It consisted of 21 people, who had to give 4 different fabrics, 5" X 22" and put into a baggies with their names on it.

That means we had to cut 84 strips of fabric and bag them. Then at the next meeting we were to dispose of the baggies into 21 Brown Shopping Bags and then take one home with us, full of 21 baggies.  

Of course this was done in the month of Dec 1995. The baggies remained in the Shopping bag till August 1996.  I had a hard time trying to decided what to do with these assortments of strips.  Wish I had know about strip quilts back then, but I was still new to quilting.  After much contemplation I decided to do the Card Trick Block.  But what is unique is that this block has four parts with a background fabric.  Our challenge said we could use up to 5 other colors of fabric if we desired.    I came up with the idea to use each baggie as a block, therefore each Card Trick block was of that persons fabric.

Then came time to assemble the top after the blocks were made.  Wow 21 blocks, but wait a minute how do I put 21 into a top.  Aha, who says all blocks have to be used in the top.  Not me.  So I took each block and arranged the blocks by alphabetical order of those who participated.  But wait where is 21st person, look on the back.  All alone in the middle is the last person participating which was me, since last name is Wall.

The I started the process of handquilting the quilt back in 1997 on a trip to North Carolina with DH, yep, hoop, stencil and marking pens and quilt on a long road trip.  I had all the blocks quilted and done by the year of 2003, but wanted something special for the borders.  When I went to Houston Int'l Quilt show I ran into a vendor who would do my request.  I wanted the following as my border.  Spade, Diamond, Heart and Club.  He designed and sent to me the templates to make a stencils.  But with many other projects going on I did not start the borders till last year in Florida.  On Dec 7, 2007 at 12:27AM(EST) the final stitch was done and the binding was also finished on that day. 

So ladies for those quilts or tops or pieces that are in baggies, shopping bags, boxes, etc.  Don't give up hope.  It can be done, but 12 years is not bad, I am now hand quilting the very first quilt I ever made back in 1990. It also was a challenge, just like this one, but the design is different and also knowing it was my very first quilt, it has some unique joining areas.  No comments please, it was my first.  Be on the lookout for it to be photo and shown with in the next few months.

I hope you enjoyed this story and remember we all love quilting and enjoy hearing about all of your endeavors in quilting.

Purple hugs,

quiltDonalyn

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