My First Quilt

I made my first quilt while I was in high school. I am using the word "made" loosely because the front is one piece of material.

My mom's cousin knew of a place that sold fabric by the pound. Now remind you, this was many moons ago, so I don't know if the place even exists anymore. Most of the material was the end pieces, leftovers, cut offs from the factory that made clothing and bedding. Yep, mom made some quilts and crafts that had sweatpants material or drapery material. Sounds funny now, but those quilts with the sweatpants material kept us warm during cold winter nights.

I found this material with the lion head and just fell in love with it. I remember seeing catalogs advertising throws with animal heads. They were more money than I was willing to spend or ask my parents to spend. This piece of material I found was not the throw type of material like in the catalogs, but it had the same type of look. The material had a bit of fuzziness, so it gave the feel of being warm. It was also lightweight so paying by the pound did not cost very much.

Once home, my mom helped me set up the quilt on the quilting frame. Since I had not hand quilted prior to this, my mom quilted the lion's head so she could quilt the curves around the eyes and other facial features. This allowed me to quilt the areas that used straight lines. Those areas include the open area and the grass.

I slept under this quilt for several years. Till one day, I realized the fuzziness was coming out. By looking at the picture, the areas of white without the fuzziness show up well. I have kept this quilt with me as I have moved several times and lived a life. It draws me back to my teenage years of helping my mom with her quilts. And her helping me with mine.

Oh, how many moons is many moons ago? The quilt is 40+ years old.