Beginning Mom's Quilt

My mom and I went to the fabric store together last time I was home in Chicago. Unfortunately, she doesn't see it as a grown-up Disney World like I do. I decided to start a quilt for her, since it's always much more fun to share what you make with others. We settled on a blue and purple theme and grabbed a bunch of fat quarters. After at least a half an hour of hemming and hawing over which fabric to use, we picked 12 for a lap sized quilt.

Originally I was going to use the Mango Tango pattern found here. It seemed easy enough- a combination of 9 patches, like my first quilt, and larger blocks.

First I took the fat quarters and cut them down into 4 blocks a piece, each 9x9. After laying out the 48 blocks, I realised that I liked the look as is and could use the scraps to make a border, rather than additional blocks for the body of the quilt.

It didn't take long at all to sew the blocks together. I found that if I lined up the blocks from the middle, it would make for more even corners. I'm sure that this is not the "official" way of doing things, but until I am better at cutting precisely, it'll do just fine.

Here's where I am now, next it's on to the borders!

And so the addiction begins...

This was my first attempt at a quilt! I chose a jelly roll from Joann Fabrics and winged it. I thought it'd be easy to cut the roll into squares for a nine patch. In hindsight, I probably should have started with either completely precut pieces or at least larger squares. I have some work to do in terms of learning to line things up...

All in all, the quilt turned out well. I had some wonderful advice from a lady working at Joann regarding borders and backing. I'm sure I would have been lost without her! I was all set to use several different patterns for the border, but she showed me how much better the quilt would look with a solid color to offset the middle part of the quilt. This brings me back to the community of quilters I've joined! It's so great! This quilt turned out to be a little smaller than lap sized. Right now it lives on the back of my futon as decoration. It amazes me just how much space quilting requires. It's a good thing I have a large floor!

Lesson 1: Quilting requires an amazing amount of patience. If you're not in the mood to quilt- don't force it! You'll end up making silly mistakes and ultimately make yourself frustrated.