Create!

Not long before completing my first quilt top, I knew I was hooked. The process of gathering the fabrics and planning out where they should go is like a big puzzle, and I do love puzzles!

On my first trip to Keepsake Quilting (or KQ), which I think was in July 2004, I had my whole quilting world turned upside down. Now, mind you, I didn’t have much of a frame of reference beyond my local Joann Fabrics store, a few weeks’ worth of Simply Quilts shows, and a couple of quilting magazines I’d thumbed through but didn’t buy.

For starters, 10,000 bolts of fabric. That’s a LOT of fabric. The colors and textures and patterns and themes! I think I walked around with my jaw dropped, just trying to take everything in.

And then there are all these quilts for sale, too. The work done by all these people was truly inspiring.

Let’s not forget the patterns and books and tools, either. Things I didn’t recognize. Things I didn’t understand the purpose of.

Anyway! After my first quilting experiences, I felt pretty good about my ability to sew straight seams, so I thought I’d find a good beginner’s book that I could learn widely-accepted standard quilting practices and maybe get myself some higher-quality fabric, too. (Just a word about fabric: there are different grades of all-cotton fabrics, ranging from those that feel like sandpaper, to a mid-grade that is less rough but still prone to fraying if you don’t cut it just right, to a high-end that is as smooth and luxurious as silk. KQ carries only the high-end stuff.)

After browsing nearly every bolt, I decided on a collection of 1930s reproduction fabrics. I also found a great book–Quilting for People Who Still Don’t Have Time to Quilt by Marti Mitchell (which, although out of print, you can still get new or used on Amazon, if you’re so inclined)–that presented instructions clearly in both words and pictures/diagrams and had some pretty and easy-looking patterns. I stocked up on the remaining fabrics and items I needed at Joann Fabrics and set about making my second quilt:

I call this one Vintage Mosaic in Blue. (This is roughly 1/4 or 1/6 of the final product, which was huge. I’m pretty sure it was queen sized.) The square patches are 2.5″ square finished. I used something like 16 or 20 different prints and 2 solids. You’ll notice that I played by no rules when it came to mixing and matching colors and scale of print, and yet somehow, it’s not atrocious. ;)

I still have this top in my stash, too. The seams are better, and I have nothing pulling apart due to bad seam allowances. My points (the intersections where pieces come together) are sharper than in Fireworks, and I was really pleased with the mix of mostly solids with a few featured prints. I also cannot begin to tell you how happy I was to not be dealing with triangles, except for those used around the outer edge (aka, the setting triangles)!

I was so pleased with my progress in just two quilts that I decided to make another quilt of this same pattern–but smaller–for my mother-in-law for Christmas. I found (at KQ) a collection of 1930s-inspired plaid fabrics, and I supplemented with 2 solids. I call this one Vintage Mosaic in Purple:

It really is square. In order to get the whole thing in frame while it was on my living room floor, I had to take the photo at a severe angle.

VMiP was completed, quilted, and bound in time for Christmas 2004 gift-giving. My mother-in-law was very happy with it then and still uses it today!

So, friends, did you ever learn better techniques for a new hobby from a book? If so, which one? Looking forward to your comments.

My life underwent a lot of changes in 2003-2004. I became engaged. I got laid off. I moved in with my then-fiance, now-husband. We planned our wedding. We were married. I came home from our honeymoon, married and still unemployed. Once S went back to work, I had a steady diet of job hunting and watching home improvement-related TV.

One of my favorite shows during that time was HGTV’s Simply Quilts, hosted by Alex Anderson. I did not start watching it with the intent to start quilting; I was mostly curious about the process and whether it was old-fashioned as I perceived it to be. However, the more I watched it, the more interested I became, and eventually, I decided that I would try quilting on for size–you know, like you do when you have no income. (Perhaps not the smartest decision I have ever made, but I needed something constructive to do!)

I did some research online and found instructions for creating a block that looked like a pinwheel. I also went to my local Joann Fabrics store and picked up some basic quilting supplies: fabric (it was June, so I had a lot of patriotic fabrics to choose from), a cutting mat, a ruler, and a rotary cutter. I already had a sewing machine and thread. So, one day, while S was at work, I started working on my first quilt. Here is the first block:

Looking at it now, I see the flaws. I also recognize it for the much-too-difficult thing that it is, given my quilting skill level at the time. (Two words: bias seams.) But, hey, the patches are all about the same size, the seams are more or less straight, and the block is more or less square. For my first time, I felt like this was a victory!

I cut and sewed, I looked for work, and I cut and sewed some more. It took me the better part of a few weeks to assemble all 90 blocks. For the most part, they all looked about the same as the first, although there were a few that came out stunningly smaller than the others. Not knowing any better, I continued on to the next step–laying out the quilt–and then on to assembly of the top.

At the time, we had plenty of room in the living room for me to lay out a nearly-queen sized quilt top on the floor. I wanted a randomized feel to the final quilt top, but I wanted to retain order as well. So, I set two “rules” for the layout–alternate red blocks and blue blocks, and no two edge-touching blocks should contain the same secondary fabric. The final layout, which looked like fireworks to me so I called this one Fireworks, looked like this:

I am fairly certain I was successful in sticking to my self-imposed rules, but even if I didn’t, what does it matter? I think the final product is beautiful, even if it does have some opportunities for improvement.

I have never quilted this top. There are some seams that will not stay sewed shut, whether due to too little seam allowance or too much fraying. There are many places where the pressed seam allowances are stacked up in so many layers that it is nearly impossible to sew through them. I had problems with machine tension, so there are some hairball-sized knots of thread in a few places.

Despite those flaws, I love this quilt. It’s my first, and even with all its issues, I am very proud of this accomplishment. I keep it with my fabric stash, and every once in a while, I pull it out and think about how far I’ve come and how excited I was to get started in this new hobby.

How about you? What hobby did you start at what most people would consider an inopportune time? What made you get started in the first place?