Quilt Qua

My Nature Quilt

While I was studying abroad in England, my cousin, Marshaleen, asked if she could use my apartment as a quilt studio since she couldn't quilt at home without her small children getting dangerously close to needles and pins and seam rippers. I said sure, and while I was off at Cambridge University, she made me a beautiful quilt of nature fabrics since I'm a big bird-watcher. The woman who quilted it, Madeleine Vail, is a friend of Marsh's, and she put in birds, birdhouses, eggs, feathers, and all other things birdy for me. It turned out beautifully, and she must have put the quilt bug in the air, because when I returned home, I began to want to learn to quilt. Since February, before which I'd never touched a sewing machine or iron, I've made 3 quilt tops, and I'm working on two more! My very first quilt was a 6 foot sampler quilt which is being quilted by Madeleine now.