Anita is a hand piecer. She has beautiful stitches in her piecing and she even pieces her backing! I have only hand pieced one quilt in my life. It was the very first quilt I ever made and because of the tedious experience I didn't touch quilting for 6 years after that! I have a feeling that for Anita, she looks at hand piecing as a meditative process. A time when she can slow the mind and relax into the stitches. I find that foundation strip piecing does it for me.

I made a quilt while going through my divorce that just allowed me to take a little vacation from stress and smooth out my edges in a time of great stress. It was one of the first quilts I put on my longarm machine when it arrived. Can you tell I love batiks? I really shouldn't have bought any other kind of fabric because it is the only thing that really speaks strongly to me.

I used a variegated thread and did a curly cue inside an arrowhead sort of shape with flamey things coming off and echoes all around. I chalked on the arrowhead shape using a dish I found in the kitchen. This was long before I knew about templates or had any gadgets/goodies for my machine. I still really love this quilt. It brought me peace and still does.