Long before quilter's guilds or templates had any meaning to me, a dear friend told me about these patchwork blankets she saw while being an exchange student in the US and said she was busy making one herself. No way in hell that I could understand what she talked about over the phone but after visiting her, I got the basic idea. So... using paper squares, all equal in size I set off to make my very own patchwork blanket using everything but 100% cottons. Someone must have seen me working on this blanket and told me about quilting - the word, the groups and the guild and I just had to find these people. Several phonecalls later, I got hold of a lady who invited me to come along to their group one day. O dear, what a terrible disappointment! There I was holding my patchwork and realized that what I made could not even remotely compare to what they've been doing. Mine looked like something from a pre-primary class while they were definately graduates and then I had to learn that they were only in the 'beginner's group'!
Needless to say, I never returned to this group and continued with my blanket after making peace with the fact that it will never be a showpiece and that I'll have to donate the completed blanket to one of my dogs, Varkie, who simply appreciated any blanket.
It took me 4 years to complete - in the end I couldn't manage the quilting (used the thickest batting) and gave it to professionals to do and unfortunately old Varkie died exactly 3 weeks before the blanket was returned to me.
Completed August 2004
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