My First Quilt

Have you heard?? Camille and Carrie are hosting a Parade of Quilts. You show your very first quilt that you made (no matter how awful!) and then you show your most recent quilt. Well, I just finished a quilt several hours ago (how's that for timing?) so I thought I'd play along, too! Here is the quilt I just finished. You can read more about it here. I'd say the most inportant lesson I've learned along my quilting journey ~ take the time to PRESS!! It makes life so much easier. It really does...just do it. With a smile :)

And now for the first quilt......its actually still a quilt top. Folded up and stashed away in my closet. It was my first and I started it right after we completed our paperwork for our adoption. We had first applied for twins and I didn't want to finish the quilt until we knew for sure how many daughters we'd be brining home (if two, I was gonna break it up into two quilts, one for each daughter). We've since found out we no longer qualify for twins because we already have children....so maybe I should finally finish it up? Oh ~ and the back of this quilt? Not a single seam was pressed. I just kept sewing. THAT should be fun to quilt, right?! Maybe I will just leave it as a flimsy :)

So, I thought I should also show a pic of the first quilt I finished. It was a gift for some friends and it was started the same evening the above top was finished, so its all in the same time frame. Sadly (or maybe fortunately), I dont' have a picture of the finished quilt. Its bad....oh so bad. It wasn't square AT ALL. Do you see those ruffles in the top right corner of the picture? Its not just the way the quilt is laying....its all ruffled and funky up there. I had my mom embroider some pink airplanes in the corners because it was for a baby girl whose parents are pilots. In an attempt to square it up, I nearly chopped off half an airplane (um, wouldn't it make more sense to square it up BEFORE embroidering???) Very few of my intersections match (which could explain the lack of squareness) and instead of machine quilting, I tied it. Oh yea, that yellow inner border? Its minky. Nothing like jumping in with the most difficult fabric on your first go 'round, eh? I didn't know how to piece a backing properly, so I just sewed a strip on to one end and called it good (and the seam was lopsided). But alas, I did learn a lot. I learned not to be afraid. I learned that one the final quilt was all washed up and ready to ship off, that although the quilt itself wasn't perfect, the hugs that it provides are. My quilting is still not perfect, but it gets better with each and every quilt and I've learned that there are NO QUILT POLICE! :)

Thanks for stopping by and I can't wait to see everyone else's firsts!