It’s a day to celebrate all the joys of quilting!
One of the ETSY teams I belong to issued a challenge: Make something based on your first ever quilting block.
The first quilt I ever made was a rag quilt (and I still love making rag quilts), so there were no pieced blocks – just squares stitched together. I had seen one at the quilt shop where I was taking machine embroidery classes. Machine embroidery designs were used to “quilt” the squares before they were stitched together and the blocks are sewn with exposed seams, which are clipped so they fray out when washed. Without needing accurate 1/4″ seams, I figured that this was a project for me! I’d post a photo but i realize I don’t have one – and the quilt is at the cottage now and I’m at home, so I’ll have to wait until we’re next there….
Shortly after I got hooked on rag quilts, I convinced m
y Mom to go to a 45 minute demo on Paper Piecing with me while we were at the Creativ Festival in Toronto. We all got to piece a small Christmas Tree block, and I was hooked! I bought a bunch of paper piecing patterns at the festival…one was the Quilter’s Advent Calendar which I made that summer. It’s made up of individual little quilts 
which you insert into the background quilt. As as matter of fact, I leave it up all year and have made little quilts to celebrate other seasons as well – fall, halloween, winter, Easter…
Anyway, to get back to the Worldwide Quilting Day Challenge, 
I decided to make some rag-quilt coasters using that paper-pieced tree block. They actually sold this week in my ETSY shop, so I made another set, too.
If you want to see other WWQD projects made by my team members, I’ve posted them on Pinterest:
To celebrate quilting today, I’m working on a challenge project. Are you celebrating quilting today?
jmStitching 