Quilt of the week

I thought I'd feature this quilt today. This quilt hangs in my family room. I made it specifically for this room. I started the quilt in August 2002 and finished it in July of 2003. I had wanted to make a quilt for my family room for quite some time but at the time I was past president of the Utah Quilt Guild and as such it was my responsibility to head up the guild's annual 4 day convention to be held the 3rd week of September. As an added challenge, I had chosen to hold the convention in St George, Utah for the first time ever. Since most of the quild members live in northern Utah, this was quite the hub bub. I was totally immersed in this endeavor and I felt like I had been doing nothing but difficult, not always pleasant, challenging, time consuming coordinating and planning and organizing things non-stop and one day I just had to do something for myself. So I walked into a quilt shop and found this pattern and found all the fabric and just immersed myself in a little creative release. Ahhhhh, I felt so much better!

The star portion of this quilt is totally machine pieced but the border design is all hand appliqued and I did hand quilt this one as well. The pattern came from a book titled "Civil War Women" by Barbara Brackman and the pattern is named "Tobacco Worm". The pattern was adapted from a quilt made some time between 1840 and 1865 and in the original quilt, portions of the quilt were made using a fabric that was the exact same green color as a tobacco worm, hence the name. That name doesn't really do a lot for me so I call this quilt "Saved by a Star" because I felt like my sanity was saved by tackling this project at such an intense time for me. By the way, the quilt convention was a huge success attended by over 450 participants and 2 years later the convention was held in St. George again because everyone enjoyed it so much. Whew, I lucked out with the quilt and the event!! Win -- Win!