“First Challenge Quilt” – NFS
35 ½” x 33”  [2001]

“First Challenge Quilt”

Metropolitan Patchwork Quilt Society announced their first Challenge Quilt for their first-ever quilt show. The Challenge was to use the black-and-white lined fabric in any way we choose.  This was MY "first challenge quilt."

My dear 96-year-old aunt in Michigan had gone to a great deal of trouble to travel to a larger town to order a book for my Christmas gift, after seeing a wonderful quilt of Noah’s Ark animals… I looked in “A Quilter’s Ark” by Margaret Rolfe and found the paper-pieced pattern for the zebra. I wrote a dedication to my aunt on the back of this quilt. Eleven fabrics were combined in this quilt. The challenge quilts were voted on by attendees of the MPQS show and this quilt won “Best Use of the Challenge Fabric.”