My First Quilt

Camille and Carrie have been hosting a little first quilt parade – where everyone is supposed to share their first quilt and their latest quilt.  I had until last night to post about it, but a few things came up and I didn’t get it done.  But, I decided I’m going to post anyways, even if I am a day late for the party. 

 

My First quilt is called the Cottage Sampler.  It was 1994.  I was a freshman in college, home for a week on Christmas break.  Please don’t try to visualize my hair.  I loved heavy metal rock bands and my hair showed it.  Instead, just picture all the hand made things around your house.  The fabrics in my quilt were probably quite similar to those items.

 There are oodles of quilters in my area that have all made this quilt.  Our local quilt shop, DarLin Quilts offered this project as a class for those interested in learning to quilt.  The prerequisite was that you were supposed to take the Beginning Beginner’s class.  I kind of skipped that part.  That might explain why my points don’t exactly match.  

Lin, who owned the shop, was an excellent teacher and my mom was currently taking the class.  At the time, I lived at home with my parents, so my mom was available to help me 24/7.  By the end of the week, I had the top pieced and bordered, but had no idea how to finish it.

Again, Mom to the rescue.  She layered it and quilted it with a 3-step zigzag on her Bernina.  See?

Now, this isn’t really considered a beginner quilt – but I was a beginner, I didn’t know that!  It turned out to be a lucky mistake on my part, as sampler quilts really teach you the foundation for quilting.  You learn to strip piece, make half-square triangles, quarter square triangles, square-in-a-square blocks, flying geese, etc, etc.  After making this quilt, I was able to look at many patterns and see how these easy blocks are used to make many of the blocks that we still use in quilting today.  I learned a valuable lesson – most complicated blocks can be broken down into several easier blocks.  I still love that concept today.

 

Shortly after I finished that quilt, I made my first trip to a quilt shop and thought I’d died and gone to heaven!  I also realized my fabrics weren’t that  . . . well . . . .  trendy.  So I bought new fabric (what was trendy at that time) and made the quilt again. 

Thus began my love affair with color options.  The same quilt pattern can look so different just done up in different fabrics – another valuable lesson learned.  For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know I still love to make color options!

I did quilt and finish this one myself, though I’m sure Mom would have helped if I needed it.

For those of you who are considering getting into quilting, let me just say that quilting can be highly addicting.  It may also cause obsessive fabric collecting, stressing over color combinations, and the need to go to quilt classes and retreats.  

Totally worth it.

 

(PS – You have already seen my the last project I finished, so I’m not going to post it again.  I am in the process of finishing a bunch of things and will post those soon.)