My oldest UnFinished Object is from 1981. I made this approx. 22 inch square Celtic knot hand applique block using the basic instructions from Philomena Durcan's first book, Celtic Quilt Designs. I had mail ordered her self published book and her metal bias bars through her small advertisement that I found in a quilt magazine. This design is Celtic knot #5 in her book. She personally autographed it to me and dated it 4/17/81! As you can see, I had trouble with getting the bias tape to lay smooth, so the curves of the loops are puckered. I used five different colors of thread for the stitching, since I didn’t know how to match thread colors for the best results with appliqueing fabric. I experimented to see if it made any difference! Some of the stitching is done with doubled white thread since I had sewed clothes before I started quilting. I treated applique like it was hemming a garment. My first stitches were very far apart, with over a quarter inch between, but they got smaller as I did more stitching. I think I had read some instructions in a magazine or book that said smaller and closer stitching was better. This was really a practice block for me to try and learn hand applique. When I photographed the back to document it, I found a section that didn’t get appliqued at all. This Celtic knot is my very first attempt at using Philomena’s sewn bias tape method. Because of how it turned out, I think that's why I've never gotten around to putting this block into a quilt. It got tucked away somewhere for many years until I rediscovered it. I decided to keep this block because of its history. This is the beginning of my Celtic style applique focus. It wasn't until some months later that I took a hand applique class with a great teacher, Adele Ingraham, who could teach me left handed applique so that I got the hang of it. She was hired to come to Redding from Benecia to teach for the Quilter’s Sew-Ciety of Redding. Adele was able to demonstrate how to applique left handed, which helped me enormously! I was struggling to learn how to do hand applique since I had only been shown how for right handed stitchers. Then I ran with the Celtic knot style because it fascinated me. I started creating my own Celtic knot designs, winning awards with my Celtic quilts nationally and internationally, writing Celtic applique books for AQS in 1995 and 1997, publishing my own Celtic & More patterns, teaching others how to make bias with several techniques and lecturing about Celtic quilts!