When I was more youthful I always had the urge to sew. My Grandmother bought me a used machine and I sewed my doll clothes and some simple drawstring shorts. It was then I felt the creative juices flow, but did not know exactly at the time what that all meant. Then when I was a teenager, I had seen a Nancy Zieman show on PBS using the new fangled rotary cutter and thought to myself I could so do that. In the next 5 years I made two quilt tops and countless other sewn projects. The quilt tops got to the top point and then I had not a clue what to do next. I just didn’t know how or where to get materials to finish the top, as this was before the internet. The women in my inner circle were not quilters so I did not have the advice that I so needed. I ended up selling those tops on a yard sale for $15 each. I think that is the amount of money I had in them. I still remember the woman who bought them. I live in a small town and she was the crazy lunch lady at school. I wonder if she ever did anything with them?
Fast forward 8 years and the death of my Grandmother. When she passed my Grandfather wanted us to bag up her clothes and take them to the Salvation Army for donation. The whole time we were bagging them up, I kept thinking in the back of my mind, uh Dawn you need to keep these and make a memory quilt out of it for him. It gnawed and gnawed. And I said nothing. And regretted that one moment in time, lost forever. That is when the idea was born. My deep genes spoke to me and I knew I was a quilter. Fast forward another 7 years with my Grandfathers passing. This time I spoke up and took every stitch of his clothing as well as my Grandmother fabric stash which was forgotten in the storage room.
My Grandfather lived through the depression and seemed to save what I would consider trash, but he deemed useful. In our efforts of the purge of his “collections”, we had come across some weird things. One was a huge stash of toilet paper. I guess he always bought on sale and it piled up (odd because he had a colostomy and would never use it). So that year as a gag gift I got toilet paper for Christmas which made me cry because it was something my Grandfather purchased. The other odd thing was his worry about losing power which would then affect the water pump on the farm, which would equal not being able to flush the toilets. He started collecting every milk jug/juice jug and filled them with tap water so he could flush the toilets. His worry could have been from the 1999 millennium scare of everything shutting down.
So fast forward 1 year to 2002. I decided to make a memory quilt for my parents as a Christmas present. And since I had found a long armer to finish the top, I knew this one was going all the way. I made them a farmers daughter quilt top. My points were imperfect and seeing it today, I see how refined my skills have become. I also wanted to make another memory quilt for my Aunt. And come up with an idea of preserving his clothing in jars on a shelf much like the water he collected and saved for the toilets. I don’t have a picture of this quilt, but the jar idea on preserving the past was a perfect memory quilt for the situation.
Fast forward another 15 years to present day. I have this worn tattered quilt for my children’s crib and always wondered who made it. I knew my Grandmother knew how to sew, but did not believe she made it. This quilt was used and abused. It was formerly mine and my mother who kept it safe all those years and all those moves, gave it to me for my children to use. It was still vibrant with color and not a rag at the time. When the family got together this summer, I asked my Aunt who made the quilt. My Great Grandmother was her answer. I felt my face turn white. My Great Grandmother…..it sunk in. I discontinued use of this quilt. Amazingly it is still holding together with frayed edges. Something that surrounded me with love in my first years…..perhaps planting the seed of the memory quilts mentioned above.
So now life made a little more sense. I know deep down that I have inherited the quilter gene. Thanks Great Grandma, RIP!
Well, the green lemonade quilt is not disappointing with it’s drama. I have started quilting this green monstrosity and it continues to be problematic. And as I suspected, the gremlins are coming out to play while I do the FMQ. (How Ghoulish for halloween). My sewing machine has got a bad case of the gremlins lately and will not stop sewing if I have the needle stop in the down position. It just keeps going and going like the energizer bunny. I can unplug the foot control. I can press stop. The only way to stop it is to turn it off and you are not supposed to just turn it off in the middle of the program. That would be like shutting a windows computer off without shutting windows down properly. You know if you do this, you might end up with the blue screen of death. My machine had done this for a period of time and I thought it was because my magnetic pin keep was too close to this digital sewing machine. So I moved it long ago and it went away. Now unless the green is magnetic fabric, this should not be causing the problem.
This was my first attempt at free motion quilting. It was imperfect, but it was completed and I figured the baby would not care. The paper piecing pattern is available for free download at 
Sew from that mark (center) outward. Here is one side. Once you stitch this side, flip it over and sew from the center outward. If there is any discrepancy with the pattern or your cutting of the pattern you will know immediately that something is not quite right. When you finish stitching your melon to your 9 patch, the raw edges should be even and match at both ends. I had red somewhere on the internet to stop stitching a 1/4 inch from the end of the seam and to backstitch. I did not do this for any of this quilt top and did not have issues. I suppose if it were a long lasting UFO like this one has been , then perhaps back stitching is a good thing?! I do know with as many seams as I have ripped out of this to get where I am back stitching just makes it harder to fix if it is imperfect. 
When sewing curves, stitch another 3 or 4 stitches past where you think you should stop. Do not look at the front of the foot when piecing curves. Look at the foot where the needle penetrates the fabric. If your edges are butting up to your foot correctly here, but at the front of the foot they are not, you are still ok taking a few more stitches until your raw edges appear to go askew at the needle point edge of the foot. If you can break the habit of looking at the front of your foot while sewing curves, you will be able to make this quilt and your seams will be 1/4 inch accurate. Of you choose to look at the front of your foot and do not break this habit, your seams will turn into 3/8 seams. The pattern is designed for 1/4 inch seams and if you mess with that dimension, the quilt will not sew together correctly and you will not be able to match subsequent raw edges after the first block is done.
In the picture above looking at the front of the foot vs where the needle penetrates the fabric, I now know I have about 2 to 3 more stitches to take before I need to lift my pressor foot and reposition both pieces of fabric.
Here is an example of what I am talking about. The first block is turned with the melons on the top and the bottom of the block. The second block in the top row is turned where the melons are on the right and left of the 9 patch. So every other block is up and down or left and right. This is how you make a row. Then you can sew your rows together by starting in the center of the center block and stitching to the edge of there the 4 blocks come together.
When pressing your blocks press your 9 patches toward the melons.
The pieces that were cut for this pattern did not have the ends trimmed so, when sewing follow that natural curve of the raw edge until you get to the very end. There will be a tail. 
Your first joined blocks will not be perfect (due to the learning curve you are experiencing and that is ok, as this is the part of the process of quilting). You have the following options 1.) you can proceed and make sure this row is a row located on the edge of the quilt and not in the center or 2.) rip it out and start over until you can get all those raw edges to come together perfectly without alignment issues. Practice will make perfect, the more of these you sew together, the better you will get at it.
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