Pioneer Sampler Redo

I first did this quilt in the late 90's. It was my first quilt with a shape besides a square.

At the time "Quilt in a Day" was on PBS early on Saturday mornings. I was amazed at how simple the complicated blocks were to piece and it gave me confidence to try a more complicated quilt. As, I remember, the show was of star blocks. I found that book at the quilt store but I liked the Pioneer Sampler better.

My first pioneer sampler was made with 30's style fabric I purchased on sale. I liked the fabric when I saw it and was afraid if I didn't get it I would never be able to find any again. I'm happy to report that 15+ years later you can still get 30's fabric - so much for it being a fad. The quilt lived on the couch and was used when watching TV on cold nights. I don't even have a picture of it any more.

I still use the techniques from the book for piecing half square triangles and flying geese. The calendar pages in the books were filled with notes on adapting to different sizes and other tips I'd picked up over the years. So, it was the first quilt book I looked to replace and it's the only quilt that I made that I want to remake. The book already has notes on the calendar pages.

The quilt is made from fabric gifts from friends and fabric purchased with gift certificates for my local quilts store.

Some of the background fabric is a printed sampler. I had some fat quarters of it before the fire and was still able to find some of it again afterwards. Then I picked the green leaves/pink-orangish flowered fabric and added fabrics from there.

I always get sale/clearance fabric for the background fabric - usually something pale and bland.

Look what I found - it's not bland at all - apple blossoms on an orange background. I have a few strips of that fabric left to use in other quilts which is great because its too pretty of a fabric for a background.

This quilt took over a year and a half because I didn't have much time to work on it. I really wanted to do a better job of quilting it, but you need more room than I have to free motion quilt. I tried and it didn't work well. Straight line quilting had to suffice.

Now that this quilt is done I can move on to new quilts - smaller quilts for a while. I need more space before I can tackle a bigger quilt. But when I do, I'm tempted to make a Modern Pioneer - interpreting these blocks in a more modern style.

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Erica's Stitches

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