My First Sampler Quilt

First, I need to start out with a little history. My husband gave me a sewing machine for Christmas in 2006. I had never used one before, so I started out slowly with a simple patchwork rag quilt. Over the course of that first year I made a total of 5 quilts:

In 2008, I made another baby quilt and a few other small projects. We moved to Loomis this year, so sewing took a backseat to other activities.

In 2009, I did not make any quilts. Being the first full year in our new home, I spent a lot of time on other projects.

At some point over the course of this 3 year period, I came across this sampler quilt. It was for Debbie Mumm's 20th Anniversary. I had bought and cut all the fabric, but had only managed to assemble three of the blocks. This summer, I decided to pull it out and finish it. Here is the finished product:

Each block is 12.5 inches with the log cabin style strips bordering two sides of each block. Here are close-ups of a couple of blocks. I tried some freehand machine quilting as you can see on the left borders.

Overall, I am very pleased with this quilt. It is the most challenging I have completed thus far and I was able to learn some new techniques. I am already planning my next one!