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!?
See the patterns my first quilt inspired!
For members of the EU, for VAT collection purposes downloadable patterns are available for purchase in my Etsy shop.
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.