A Wife-made history lesson: The first quilt I ever made!

Long long ago, when past-Xanthe had no immediate family to care for and far too much time on her hands, she decided to make a quilt.  

And that’s pretty much the sum total of all the thought processes that went into making the decision!  I saw a pattern in a magazine that I liked and having always been a crafty, maker type of person I just did it.  I had absolutely no idea about the hows of quilting or what tools quilters use.  I had never heard of a rotary cutter, or self-healing cutting mats or 1/4″ seams.  (Did rotary cutters even exist in the year 2000?  Like, seriously.  Did they??)  As far as I was concerned, I knew how to sew, I knew how to read a pattern and that was all I needed to figure it out.  I used an ice cream container to make the pattern templates, and I cut every single square and strip of fabric with regular sewing scissors!  

And, I made a quilt.  See, here’s proof.

I look at this quilt now and think how crazy I was for diving head first into piecing such a detailed pattern.  Not to mention the fact that I was making it for a wedding gift for some dear friends!  It didn’t even cross my mind that everything could go terribly wrong, and I could be about to waste a ton of expensive fabric.  It wasn’t an option to start off with a more basic motif because that was the pattern I liked.  I kind of admire that about past-Xanthe.  She obviously didn’t believe in fabric stashes and not using the ‘good’ fabric.  I’m happy to say that I have returned to this mindset again and I’ll happily remain here forever now.  What’s the point of having fabric you never use!?  

In my quilting naivety I did completely underestimate how long it would take to make.  As I said before, it was intended to be a wedding gift, but it ended up being a baby gift.  *cough* For their second child. *cough*  Haha!  Such is quilting life, right?  I know for a fact I’m not the only one who’s had long-term quilting projects 😉  And I had NO idea about the actual quilting process and ended up having it free-motion quilted by a lovely lady called Winsome who goes to my church.  I remember her telling me that the secret to good stippling is a glass of red!  Haha!

So now, as I understand it, this quilt is one of a few ‘blankets’ in rotation on the lovely Bella’s bed.  I spied it just recently while visiting these friends and was reminded of it.  In fact, I had completely forgotten about it and if someone had asked me what my first quilt was, I probably wouldn’t have been able to answer!  So I had to put it on my blog for posterity.  And so that I never forget again.