Forgotten Quilt 1

I have made many quilts over the years and given almost all of them away.  I have recently "rediscovered" some of these quilts that I had forgotten all about!  I rediscovered one this month when I went up to Minneapolis to visit my bff for the May Day parade.  How wonderful it is to see something that you made and had forgotten all about but is being used and loved by someone else (especially my friend's Maine Coon, Elvis!). 

Here is one of the very first full sized quilts I made, a "Puss in the Corner" quilt in purple, blue, and black for my bff.  I must have made this sometime in late 1999 or early 2000 since I remember Stinky as a kitten sleeping on it a few times while it was in process. 

This was pieced both by hand and with the aid of my roommate's antique green Singer sewing machine (thanks, Jessica!).  I remember picking the pattern because it was fairly simple.  I still have the sketches I made to decide which layout of colors to use.  I was very frugal, even then, and this blue square is from an old pair of my boyfriend-at-the-time's shorts. 

The rest of the fabrics are mostly basic prints and calicos in the colors my bff requested (I also cut up an old purple plaid flannel shirt of the boyfriend's).  I look at this quilt now and I think I would never pick these colors and fabrics to make something today, but I love how this quilt turned out and I'm glad I chose this arrangement.  According to the sketches, it looks like I was originally going to include some red fabrics.  In hindsight, I'm very glad I edited the red out.

I can't believe this now but I hand quilted the entire thing.  This is unfathomable to me now since I machine piece and quilt everything I make.  Hand work is just too time consuming to me.  I love how it looks, but it's not worth it to me now with so little time available for my sewing.

 Looking at my sketches again, I'm thinking that I should make another quilt using one of the other layouts I created.  Not necessarily with these colors, but I've started working with solid fabrics a lot more lately - due in part to my participation in the Simply Solids Bee - and I think some of these simple squares patterns might look good with solids, especially the diagonal stripe.  It would also be good practice for lining up corners evenly, which I still have trouble with since I'm not the best measurer and have very little patience for precision...  oh well... I'll have to make that solids quilt to practice this!