Once upon a time, there was a quilter who documented each quilt she made with a photo and a few notes… She wasn’t blogging yet. Nor was she called “Indiana Quilter 40”.

My kids helped with the name. We were living in rural Indiana. And I was 40 years old. Hence, “Indiana Quilter 40” was born.

Plus, my quilting buddy (S. B. in Caribou, ME) had started a blog to share the projects she was working on with other quilting friends. She inspired me to start a blog, with some help from my kids.

The back story:

I have loved quilts since I was a very young child. The colors, the texture, the patterns. And then there is the snuggle factor. What is not to love about quilts?

Over the years, I have tried to take at least one photo of each quilt I made. I made notes on the photo back. Then the photos and notes got put in a shoebox – never to be seen again.

The son wanted to make an interesting scrapbook as a 4-H project. He wanted to make something different than family or a trip scrapbook. We thought about it, and then thought about it some more – he wanted unique. Then came the “Ah – ha” moment.

He took these photos and notes and made a scrapbook about my quilting. Using the photos and notes from the first five years of quilting, he made a fun and interesting scrapbook.

At this point the daughter started questioning me about why I had all these photos and notes, but never showed them off.

Get organized:

We decided to make quilt scrapbooks as a winter project. We divided the photos and notes by year. Son used his keyboarding skills to make a story page for each quilt. Each quilt got a chronological number. The photos were attached to the story page. Each page went into an archival plastic sheet protector. The sheet protectors went into three ring binders.

A very time-consuming project, but it kept us busy for the winter. Fun memories. We completed four scrapbooks that winter – covering about 10 years.

Over the next three to five years, we kept the scrapbooks current. It was fun to look through them and remember the quilts. Some we had all worked on, others were personal projects. We had a celebration when we did the page for the #1000 quilt – you know – cake and ice cream!

There are also many quilts that I mentored others with. Most of those never make it into the scrapbooks.

Then came the Indiana Quilter 40 blog:

In 2009, SB started her blog to share her projects with other quilters. It was fun to keep up on those since we only could get together annually in Maine every fall. She encouraged me to start my own blog to share my projects too. The kids helped with the name “Indiana Quilter 40” as told above.

Blogger.com was free and easy to use. For a very non-techie person, it was perfect and fun. I was able to tell a little about my current quilt and add photos. All I wanted, and perfect for sharing. And that was all the blog was intended to do.

In 2019, my husband and I started talking about upgrading and updating the blog so I could do more with it. We paid for an account on WordPress.com. Also, there was some thought that eventually it could be monetized and at least pay for itself.

Those wonderful scrapbooks were a huge help with blogging.

Unfortunately, they are again several years behind. I am thinking this winter will be a good time to get them caught up.

I have an office space again at home because I am working two days a week remote. There is enough room to set up a plastic table and leave it up. That will make catching up the scrapbooks so much easier when I make the time to work on them.

So that is the simple and non-time-consuming story of how Indiana Quilter 40 was born.

Be proud of your quilts:

Please do something to document your quilts.

It is a fun way to remember how your skills increase. That is always encouraging.

Make a scrapbook, or a bulletin board. Or a file on your computer.

Anything that encourages and inspires us with our quilting should be considered a tool to use. Keep it as simple or complicated as you want.

Start a blog of your projects. Or start a photo album on your FB account.

Make it a fun part of your quilt journey.

Don’t forget to add a tag to your quilts. I cross stitch a small tag that is appliqued to the reverse of the quilt. The tag contains the name of the quilt, the dates, my initials, and more.

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

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