One of the main reasons I started this blog was to keep track of all the different projects I do so today I want to go back and show you all the first quilt I ever made. Sometime last winter, I got it in my head that I really wanted to learn how to quilt. I can’t remember exactly what influenced me but I think it might have been visiting this adorable little quilt shop in Vermont when we were there for a long weekend, looking at all the pretty quilts on the wall and thinking, “hmm, I want to try to make something like that!”. I decided to make my first quilt as a gift to my mom for Mother’s Day.
My next step after deciding I wanted to make a quilt was to learn how to! I decided on the book The Practical Guide to Patchwork, by Elizabeth Hartman.
Source: Amazon
I loved this book. I found it fairly easy to understand the basics of quilting and how to get started. The instructions were so detailed and the patterns were easy to follow. I picked out a pattern that I thought my mom would like and then bought some pretty fabric. I went with a collection of fabric, California Girl by Moda, because I wasn’t confident enough to choose fabrics that I thought would go well together. It’s still a skill I’m working on today.
After much cutting and pinning and worrying, I got to sewing. It took much, much longer than I had thought it would. (Picking up on that chain-piecing tip in the book would’ve helped quite a bit!) Regardless, I was hooked. I wasn’t even halfway done with my mom’s quilt and I wanted to make another one!
For the quilting, I decided to use the stippling technique I learned in the book. (Why I decided to do this for my first quilt instead of straight line quilting is beyond me) After a couple of days of frustration, I finally got the hang of it, and finished the quilting and binding with just hours to spare until Mother’s Day!
Mother’s Day Quilt Front
Mother’s Day Quilt back – still one of my favorite back designs to this day
She loved it!
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