This is a quilt I made for my husband, twice. The pinwheel blocks are from the first quilt I ever made, 40 years ago, as a gift for him for our first Christmas together. The original quilt had been the pinwheel blocks set in a 4×5 layout with an ivory border and backing. I made it in the style of a comforter, using high loft polyester batting, that I sewed around the inside edges before turning out, like a pillowcase. I didn’t know to tack through the batting around the center area, so when it was put through the wash, it came out as a big ball, and took vigorous shaking to get it flat again! Needless to say, this was not a very functional comforter, and migrated into my cedar chest many, many years ago.

When I originally made this, I had no clue about economy HST blocks, no fancy rulers, and no internet to guide me in how to go about making a quilt. I hadn’t taken quilting class(es), or acquired quilting books, both which would have provided some guidance to the process. Loving to sew, I simply threw myself into making my first quilt. I can’t recall now what I even used to determine cutting the right triangles!

In a recent decluttering effort, I came across the original quilt, and decided to repurpose it into a new quilt that my husband could use as a couch throw. The center panel, blue sashing and Warm and Natural batting are the only new additions to this quilt. I used 18 of the original 20 pinwheel blocks, and much of the ivory backing to back this. As I began to reimagine this updated quilt, I wasn’t sure if I should fix the wonky pinwheel blocks, which I suspect was from whatever method I originally used to cut them. However, I decided that keeping them as is was important since it was the first quilt I ever made, and acts as the yardstick to measure my growth over the past 40 years.