Quilters Village My Oldest UFO

Quilters Village, my oldest UFO, is so old that it is probably considered vintage. The pattern by the same name was designed by Buggy Barn Quilts. Buggy Barn Quilts is no longer in business; however, one of the sisters continues in the quilt industry under the name of One Sister Design.

My story behind this quilt goes back to my early days of quilting. Even then I was drawn to wonky quilts with a bit of improv feel. Buggy Barn quilts and their method of piecing was a favorite of mine. Basically, fat quarters were stacked, a design placed on top of them, and they were cut apart. Pieces were rotated, and the blocks were pieced. The pattern for Quilter’s Village can be found in the Buggy Barn quilt book, A Little Bit Crazy.

It happened back in 2003 – yep, you read that right — we took a trip that landed us in Spokane, Washington for a few days. I mentioned to BigJ that we were so close to Buggy Barn Quilts and that it would be fun to visit. This was before the days of Siri, GPS and that helpful technology, so armed with a MapQuest map (remember those?), we set out.

It seemed as though we drove farther and farther into the countryside until we came to a farm with the sign Buggy Barn Quilts. The shop was in a renovated outbuilding, a tiny and cozy little shop. I came away with the kit (top only, no backing or binding) and it was the most I had ever spent on a quilt kit. I couldn’t wait to work on it, but at the same time I was a wee bit intimidated. Once I was back home, I got it done fairly quickly. However, being new to quilting, I ran into a few snags. I recall that one of them was figuring out how to square the blocks; I mistakenly lopped off a things I shouldn’t have, like the corners of the churn dash in the photo below.

Once the top was pieced, I laid it out on the floor and realized I needed to square it. Not really knowing what I was doing, I measured as best I could, grabbed my cutting mat and ruler, and more or less whacked off the bottom right side a bit. I realized after the fact that I maybe should have given that a bit more thought. What I know now is that had I let it be, it would’ve been just fine. So, one end of the quilt is quite a bit shy of the other.

At the time, I just figured I’d add borders to right things. That meant ordering fabric, which wasn’t as easy back then, so it got put off. Before I knew it, the Buggy Barn doors had closed and I had no fabric. So it got put aside while I pondered what to do. And now, 17 years later(!!!) I just decided to finish the thing, for pity’s sake. And I’m happy I did. Even though the colors are so different from what I create with now, I still love the quilt with the deep earth tones and the homespun fabrics.

The quilt measures roughly 66″ x 95″. I used a wide backing in a deep gold. Connie, my best friend and long armer, did a quick meandering stitch for the quilting. I dug in my stash for the binding, and had to smile when I pulled the stripe out and saw this.

I picked up this striped fabric somewhere along the way on one of my shopping adventures, not even thinking about this quilt. Had to smile when I saw that it was Buggy Barn fabric. Perhaps it was just meant to be.

And with that, Quilters Village, my oldest UFO, is finally finished after 17 years!

Linking up today with