My First Quilt is Finished!

I have just finished My First Quilt!

Back in 2005, my friend and I took “Introduction to Quilting: Six Block Sampler”. Our materials list instructed us to choose a fabric we loved and, using it as a guide, select four more fabrics to go with it. I went off to class with my lovely, bright colours, to find the other seven people in the class had chosen “autumn” fabrics, and the teacher asked it I was making a baby quilt. I was offended.

Rotary cutters were relatively new, and our teacher was very traditional, so most of the blocks were constructed with templates. I struggled with sewing accuracy, but still loved the whole process. I would race home from class and start the week’s homework, and got my top assembled on schedule. Then came the quilting. The hand quilting.

I started with great enthusiasm, but rapidly got bored out of my mind with it. And life was busy and the quilt ended up in a bag somewhere. For years. Every now and then,  I would take it out and sew a few lines of quilting and realize, yet again, that I hated hand quilting. A number of times, I nearly put it under the sewing machine, but there had been too much hand quilting already done for that.

Along came Quilting Gail, and the PHD project.  I listed My First Quilt as an undone project, with no real hope of finishing it. Somehow, that was just what I needed. I sewed a little at home,  but mostly during breaks at work, and even took it on holiday until, magically, it was done. Done perfectly? Hardly. Heavily quilted? You’ve go to be kidding. Finished? Absolutely. And its destination? I have no idea. I do not want to see it in my sewing room. Maybe I’ll put it away for a future grandchild. After all, it looks like a baby quilt.

Linking up with Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts and Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict