I’ve mentioned several times in my writing that I have a group of friends who frequently organize quilt related swaps. One year, after a particularly tricky swap, we decided that the best thing to do was sets of 5” squares – 2 light and 2 dark that coordinated. Several in the group wanted to make a pattern called Tilly’s Treasures, but I knew going in that was going to be way too detailed for my taste.

I let my 5” squares marinate for a while, mostly because I was busy cutting sets of squares, but I came to the conclusion that I wanted to do something simple that would get me a finished quilt that I could enjoy. My favorite block is the pinwheel (big surprise there, right??) and the sets of 4 squares were perfect for pinwheel blocks.

This quilt is everything I love about quilting. My friends are in this quilt. It is a riot of color – nothing goes together and yet everything goes together. Each pinwheel is a color story, and when I put the quilt on the bed, I see different things in it every time I look at it. I am always amazed how such a simple block can make such an intricate looking quilt – sometimes it turns into a broken dishes pattern, other times the pinwheels come out strong. Another thing about this quilt is how much orange there is. Orange is not one of my favorite colors, and I don’t really remember seeing that much orange when the squares were being swapped, but when I look at the finished quilt, goodness gracious there’s a lot of orange in there. I’m learning to like orange.

The quilt does hold a surprise – there are at least two pinwheels that have glow in the dark fabric in them. I found this out the first time I put the quilt on my bed. I got myself ready for bed, turned off the light and was very startled at a glowing pinwheel in the middle of my bed. I crawled in bed, and when I looked down I saw the second one. I lay in my bed, in the dark, laughing at my friends. To this day, none of them have admitted to supplying the glow in the dark fabrics, but I have my suspicions.

When people ask me what is my favorite quilt, this is it. It’s not fancy, it’s not an example of intricate piecing or technique, but it’s still my all time favorite quilt. I pull this one out each year to put on my bed, and it’s a tangible reminder about the group of amazing women I know and how they have impacted my life in so many ways.