Year: 2009 – 2013

Size: 72″ x 86″

After I took “My First Quilt” class at my local quilt shop in Los Angeles, Quilt Emporium, I took the next class “The Next Step” (or something like that) specifically to make something for my daughter, Kayla.  The top is 100% cotton but the back is a red fleece so that it is soft to the touch.  I chose bright colors from the thirties because the colors bring me feelings of joy and happiness – and this was Kayla at age 8.  She was bright and joyful and happy.  Now she’s a twelve year old girl full of hormones and tween issues.  But the quilt still reminds me that underneath all the tween stuff, she’s still my bright, happy little girl.

I took the class in 2009 and finished the top pretty quickly.  I took a machine quilting class and found that my machine at that time wasn’t very good at machine quilting.  It would work fine when I went forward or backward but any kind of sideways or slants would cause the machine to skip stitches.  So I set the top aside while I saved up some money for a sewing machine.  In 2012, I purchased my Bernina 330.  I’m sure I could have gotten a different machine with more features but I wanted a Bernina.  So I got the Bernina I could afford.  After about 6 months of getting acquainted with my machine I decided to start quilting Kayla’s.  I absolutely hated quilting it.  Here’s a project where I loved the quilt top and felt that the quilting was making it ugly.  I kept stopping because of this disappointment.  However, now that it is done, it isn’t ugly at all.  I think it is beautiful.  You can see all the ugly quilting on the back of the quilt but who cares?  It’s finished and Kayla loves it. She already has me planning her next one.

Finished on 8/19/2013