Finished: My First Quilt
My very first quilt was a scrappy Sister's Choice. Sister's Choice is a traditional star block with a nine-patch center. My husband's grandma gave me a bunch of scraps of fabric, and I put them together to make these blocks.
This quilt was an incredible learning process. From threading my machine, to hand stitching the binding, everything was new to me. I learned a lot through trial and error, and when I got really stuck, I looked things up online. I figured there was no better way to learn how to quilt than to jump in with both feet and make it work.
I free motion quilted it on my home machine. I used all over swirls and swirly feathers. It turned out pretty well. The quilting is far from perfect, but what better way to learn than on a large utility quilt? It was very satisfying to work on a real project while practicing a new skill. The all over design was fun to quilt, and it provides a great texture.
For the label, I made a small star block using the two border fabrics. I liked the way that brought the feel of the front of the quilt around to the back. I enclosed two of the raw edges of the label in binding before attaching it to the quilt. The other two edges are sewn in with the binding on the quilt. I like how it encloses the label and makes it look like it has been framed.
This quilt took me over a year to make. In part, that was due to the way I approached it, but it was mostly a result of the learning process. I was so anxious to finish and finally have quilt of my own that there were days that it felt like it would never be done. We still use the quilt almost every day. There's something so special about wrapping up in that first quilt.