To my surprise I was recently asked by Dawn White of First Light Designs to quilt her Metro Rings Mini Quilt.  Huge gulp!!  I have known Dawn for many years, she is a renown quilter and educator.  She works a lot with The Pine Needle Quilt shop teaching a variety of classes, her work is truly amazing, be sure to check out her blog First Light Designs.

I was up for the challenge but incredibly nervous to quilt for Dawn.  When we met we talked about design and she gave me some direction.  She pointed out that the seams on the white curved blocks don’t line up well, the nature of curved piecing.  I suggested using a ruler design that I like to do that might frame the block nicely but after quilting several blocks with this design I decided it only highlighted the uneven points.  Dawn agreed.  So after ripping all that stitching out, I searched and searched for a design that would be unique and would fill the space nicely.  I found this Acanthus flower and thought it was perfect.  Next was to fill the melon shape inside the rings, I thought the circles would fit nicely and worked well with the fabrics.  I outlined the wedge shapes with a ruler to add some interest.  Last was what to do with the green and black triangles.  Dawn requested green thread and that was a slam dunk!  I looked around for something original looking that would fit with the theme of the quilt.  In the end I drew my own design using my Statler which sounds easy but really isn’t, if it was I wouldn’t spend hundreds a month buying designs that have already been drawn and stitch tested.  Case in point, I spent more to quilt this quilt than I earned but the experience is priceless.

So not only was this quilt a huge opportunity for me to quilt for someone I really admire, it was an incredible learning experience and that’s about as good as it gets!  And the best part is that Dawn loved it!!