Cue Etta James.... AT LAST. I have finished My First Quilt! What an absolute experience this has been - but first let's get into how I finished it. The binding was the part of the quilting process that I thought I would have down with no problem. I watched 5 or 6 machine binding videos to prepare and was so sure I was going[...]
Leading up to the actual quilting, I watched dozens of videos on YouTube and read multiple blogs about how to a giant quilt on domestic machine. And then I did that again for how to quilt straight lines. And then I practiced on a very small quilt sandwich I made with leftover material I had from my queen size quilt sandwich. An[...]
Making a quilt sandwich was oddly relaxing, but be warned... the tale of how I made the quilt sandwich is not. Let's start with what really got me frustrated... waiting two weeks for my backing fabric to arrive in the mail. Nothing puts a damper on a doe-eyed quilter more than being unable to move forward on a project due t[...]
Look at this! A FINISHED QUILT TOP! I am so excited and proud of my first quilt top. The blocks are aligned, the corners are sharp, and nothing is unraveling. I'm sure as time goes on, and as I create more quilts, I will notice the imperfections and flaws. But for now I am just so pleased. Finishing the second half of pi[...]
This past weekend, I began piecing my quilt! Here's a high-level overview: For the most part, my seams are all 1/4" (thanks to the masking tape trick*).I did get a few birds nests with tangled thread but I learned I was going too quickly at the top of the fabric.I did backstitch the first squares before I realized there was[...]
Boy, oh boy! I was so nervous to jump into cutting the fabric yardage down into 8.5" squares, but I did it! It only took me two weekends to cut 121 squares... because I seem to like to start things very late in the evening. I used an 18"x24" OLFA cutting mat, a 4"x24" Omnigrid ruler, and an 8.5" square Omnigrid template, wi[...]
I wish I had taken up quilting sooner, for a few reasons. I would have had such a cool hobby for the stay-at-home lockdown (which my boyfriend and I are still adhering to).I would not have had to go through so much internal anguish about venturing out to purchase fabric (I live in Houston, and Texas is already on phase 3 of[...]
When I finally decided to 100% jump in and make my first quilt, the pattern had been pretty much already decided on. Months ago, my Grandma sent me a photo of a quilt top her friend had just pieced together with a note that it's a simple pattern I might like. Long story short, I did like it! But to be honest, I had no real comm[...]