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This was my first finished quilt.  Not the first one I started - mind you - the first one I completed. :)  The one I first started is still a UFO.

In the spring of 2005, I gave up working an office job I really liked.  I left for another job I ended up really liking too - it was a working from home gig called M-o-m. :) One of my former coworkers-turned-friend got married in the fall of 2005.  At the time, I was just discovering patchwork and becoming enamored with fabrics and pattern - I couldn't wait to finish my first quilt.  I saw my friend Josh's wedding as an opportunity to gift a quilt of my own to the happy couple.  Having a deadline definitely helped me see the project through to completion.

Following Eleanor Burns's Quilt in a Day Log Cabin book, I made the blocks shown above and really had a good time arranging them into different configurations.  I landed on the layout shown and sewed the top together.  And then I honestly looked at it and thought -- okay, why isn't it a quilt yet?!  Why doesn't it look like the one my sister made for me?  I hadn't actually considered that the quilt I'd made was really just a quilt top.  I had no idea how to finish it, so I called my sister who I knew had pulled off a finished quilt at least twice before.

I found a flat sheet on sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond and used it for the backing fabric.  I bought one of the standard polyester high-loft batts from Joann's.  I sewed the three layers together around the perimeter and left a hole to turn that mother out, pillowcase-style.  It worked!  For the finishing touch, and to add much needed stability, I tied embroidery floss through the layers all over the quilt.

It's funny that I don't have any pictures of the finished quilt.  The only two pictures I do have look exactly like the one above.  I didn't care about photography, that's for sure.  And honestly? I was probably in too big of a rush to finish before the wedding that I didn't have time to stop and take more pictures.  That sounds more like me.