The Sampler: When our two oldest girls were only ten and eight, I got the notion to help them make quilts. In order to know how to teach them the blocks, I made one of each block pattern ahead of them. My set of blocks was made into a quilt for our third daughter, Kelsey, who was only one year old at the time.

So, I would make a block, then the girls would work on the same block for their quilts. It took months of working on them. Then came piecing it together, and the oldest daughter loved it, but it was just too large for the younger. So, it became a project of the trio. The two oldest girls and I all worked on it together. So, now we have three matching quilts for our three oldest daughters!

Sampler quilts are an old idea, being a combination of patterns, made to show off many different quilt-block designs, rather than just repeating the same quilt-block throughout the quilt.

  To see close-ups of the various blocks, click on the titles.