Her First Quilt...finished at last!

It's May, almost June 2012.  Earlier this year, I had been busy in the garden with my herbs and flowers, but now I have drifted into a pre-summertime slide and won't give full attention back to the garden until fall.  I'm quilting again.  In the back of my mind, I keep thinking of aprons and summer dresses that I'd like to sew this season, so that will be coming up as well.  Here's my most recent accomplishment, a sweet Sunbonnet Sue sampler quilt which has taken me over 25 years to finally complete, mainly because it kept getting set aside for other projects, other quilts, unexpected interruptions and those kinds of things.  Each block is 12" square.  The quilt should have another column of blocks for better balance, but I'm pleased that it is done at last.  The quilting part I did by hand and I discovered how much more I enjoy hand quilting over machine quilting.  This was my very first quilt project, the one I learned how to quilt on, how to make pieced blocks, how to applique, how to lay out a quilt top to prepare for quilting, and finally how to apply a binding.  Tah dah!