One of the last projects I did while working at McCall's Needlework magazine in 1995 was this quilt. The fabrics were new at the time, and I should have paid more attention to value in the pieced blocks. If I remember correctly, we received the fabric from the company, so we were working with what we had. Though the prints in the pieced blocks are different scales, the value of the fabrics (both reading as darks) make for blocks with very little contrast. I love looking back at these quilts because they provide me with a timeline of lessons I learned. As for the quilting, I did it by hand, and I don't think it shows well, but there's a three-leaf pattern in the large green blocks. And I hand quilted in the ditch (along the seamlines) on the pieced blocks and the inner border. This did appear in an issue of McCall's Needlework, I think, but I can't seem to find it in my stash of magazines. I think that it might have been in two issues, as the teaching column we used to do called "Stitch by Stitch". I always thought we did a nice job with that column--we provided the basics about a technique: the tools, the materials, and the techniques. Then we gave them a project so they could get started.

I used to have this quilt on display at the quilt shop in Florida and had many offers to sell it, but I never could bite. Sooner or later, I'll have to clear out some of these quilts, but for now, they're here.