After I’d made several quilts for other members of my family, my husband asked if I could make a quilt for him. I remembered that quite a few years ago (fifteen?) I began putting together a quilt top for one of my boys’ beds. It never got any further than being pieced together. I’d always liked the quilt top so I dug it out of storage and decided I’d finish the quilt for my him for Christmas.

I machine quilted the entire top using several different free motion quilting patterns. I’m not very good at it but it is true that the more you do it, the better you become. The stitching I did near the end was much better than those in the beginning. It isn’t something I’d want to give away; I used it more as a learning experience. And what I learned from this experience is that I will not again attempt to machine quilt something this large on my regular sewing machine.