My first quilt
My first ever quilt was made under the guidance of my mother many years ago (too many that I am going to admit to!), the aim was to show me the basics and get me over the fear of her American sewing machine that seemed to have a mind of its own!
The colours were very basic as I hadn't yet embraced the use of use patterns and didn't have confidence in my instincts when it came to what material worked together. Also the material was all taken out of my mother's stash and therefore is more to her taste than mine.
To make the quilt I sewed strips of material together including the first and last strips together so that I ended up with a circle of rows. I then pressed the seams of all the rows each facing the same way, this enabled me to have a flat ring of fabric which I could cut across the strips to make circles of squares. Once I had cut enough circles of squares I could then start unpicking one seam in each ring to make them into a strip of squares. The key was to unpick one seam one row down from the previous one each time so that the strip started and ended on different fabric but had the same order.
Once the quilt top was made, I put it together with wadding and backing fabric so that I had my first quilt sandwich and was ready to hand quilt the layers together, as this was my first attempt I kept to simple straight lines connecting the squares made of the same fabric so that I ended up with diamonds.
Once I had binded the quilt I decided to give it to my great aunt as a lap quilt as she lived alone and was at an age when she felt the cold quite a bit. When she passed away my mother returned the quilt to me as she knew it was my first quilt and would have strong memories for me. When I taught my niece the basics of quilting last year I used the same technique for her first quilt, this quilt is a work still in progress as she is a teenager and gets easily distracted.
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