I made my first quilt in Feb. 2002. I saw an ad in the local weekly paper advertising a beginners quilt/learn to quilt class. The class met every Sat. morning for a month at a senior center. My daughters had just turned a year old and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get out of the house alone for a few hours. Plus, I would learn to quilt! Win/win. I was significantly younger than my fellow classmates and teacher. After all it was at a senior center and I was 27 at the time but it didn’t mean a thing! We all bonded over our love of quilting. My teacher was a wonderful and patient woman that I kept in contact with even after the class ended. Quilting has a wonderful way of bringing people from all walks of life together.
The project for the class was from Fons and Porter’s book Stars and Stripes Sampler. It was the “Good Morning America” Wall Quilt. It was a great project because it incorporated several techniques, including paper piecing and set-in seams. Here are two photos of my quilt. The top one shows the quilting, while the bottom shows the colors a bit more.
I worked so hard to finish my quilt before the class was over for fear I would never finish it. I even quilted it myself. I just stitched in the ditch. I bought all the necessary tools to complete the quilt including a sewing machine and walking foot. This is my first sewing machine.
I thought this sewing machine was the most amazing machine. I was so proud. It has no bells and whistles. Not even needle down and it has two speeds…not moving and hold on to your hat cause we’re sewing!! I didn’t know any better.
I completed my quilt and then didn’t sew a thing again. It wasn’t until 6 years later that I decided to pick up my rotary cutter again and I haven’t put it down since! My next project was a queen size quilt, but I’ll save that story for another post…
That was funny~not moving and hold on to your hat. I forgot about the Good Morning Quilt, you need to hang it more~at least in your studio. Good story.
What a wonderful first quilt story! Mine is very similar, wondered into a quilt shop for one thing, walked out signed up for a beginner's class. Now I'm a quilter!
I'm impressed you completed your first project, you did a wonderful job, and the pattern doesn't look like one for beginners.
My beginners class pattern was a 9 patch, split rail combo thing, I made the blocks, didn't even connect them, threw them in the trash then moved on to something else. But I learned how to use that rotary cutter and about 1/4 seam allowances, that was all I needed to know!
Shhhh… don't tell anyone, but I still sew on a machine just like that whenever I visit my parents' ;o) It works well for piecing, as you can move the needle and get an acurate 1/4" seam allowance, and I have pieced a couple of quite big quilts on that machine, but for quilting you can just forget anything but stitch in the ditch with a thread that doesn't show.