Any of you quilters old enough to remember when the Amish doll pattern(with a quilt included) surfaced back in the late 1970's or early 1980's?? A friend of mine bought it, made tons and tons of both the boy and the girl dolls to sell. Not sure if she made the quilt or not, since she is primarily a doll maker. But the quilt excited me, back then. Today it's not a quilt that I probably would ever do again..and certainly NOT in the blue and mauve that was so popular back then. But I did make this one, and one more for a nephews wedding. His doesn't have quite this much hand quilting. You see back then I lived to QUILT. Piecing was ok, but quilting was my saving grace. Sometimes you quilt to save yourself, sometimes to keep your heart from breaking, and sometime because it is broken, and what can you do? For centuries women have quilted their "lives" into their quilts. With machine quilting, I'm not sure if that is still true. There is something about the "holding yourself in one place, focused on one task, threading the needle, making the knot, running the lines(or the lack there of). Something that pulls us together and centers us. Something that makes the "undone" part of us whole again. Or stronger. Or at least strong enough to continue on. If you never hand quilt at all, you may get the same feeling when you are sewing down the binding. It's something about that needle and thread........