My First Quilt (for Parade of Quilts)

I just read on Nanci's blog that two quilters named Camille and Carrie decided to put on a parade of quilts. The idea is to show your first and last quilt and describe what you've learned. I think these kind of shared quilt stories all compiled on one site are great to meet more quilters!

Well, my first quilt is the Late Fall Quilt that I showed for the Blogger's Quilt Festival - it's a double Irish chain pattern that I learned at evening school taught by two lovely volunteers, Helen and Leona. I learned how to machine piece, strip-piece, machine-quilt (free-motion stippling and wavy lines and straight lines with a walking foot).


I guess I kind of have two first quilts actually, because I took a second class at the same time to learn hand-quilting, and started and finished the Jungle Baby Quilt for my newly-born nephew at around the same time as the Late Fall Quilt. It was a similar class, taught at a different school by a different teacher (Cathy). We learned a variety of block patterns and hand-quilted them.

(Four Patch)

I quilted these diagonal lines without guidelines - then I discovered fabric pencils, what a difference!

(Rail Fence)

(The Jungle Panel)

(Bow Tie)

(Friendship Star)

(Log Cabin)

MY LAST QUILT (so far!)

I'm really glad I finished this next quilt just a few days ago so I can blog about it because I love it! It was made for friends of mine who were getting married last Saturday. I blogged about it in the post just before this one. It's an adapted Bento Box pattern. I saw a bento box quilt on Ginny's blog and really liked the pattern. I did my own math and figured out all the block and strip sizes I wanted and even wrote a tutorial about how I made the quilt.


And what have I learned between my first and last quilt? Let's make a list, shall we? :)

1. more confidence picking colours for a quilt
2. not to feel guilty for buying fabric cause I love fabrics - the joy I get from them is worth every penny!
3. lots of new patterns and how to figure them out from looking at a quilt or diagram. I don't work well with pattern instructions and like to adapt quilts that inspire me to my own wishes
4. that giving a quilt to someone you love or means a lot to you is one of the greatest feelings ever because these quilts are truely works of art and lots of effort so they express how much I value the recipients
5. not everything has to be stippled - if you follow the wedding quilt link you'll see there's not a single stipple on that quilt - I'm diversifying :)
6. quilters are a lot of fun and very generous!
7. triangles are not that scary after all
8. that quilting will be with me for the rest of my life, and since I'm only in my 20s, I'm hoping that will be a long time! (Oh, and if there are ANY 20-something quilters out there reading this post, I'd love to hear from you - I'm starting to think that I'm weird because I've found only 2 people under 40 here who quilt, and I know NO quilters under 30 here (here being PEI, Canada).

I look forward to looking at all the posts next Monday and finding lots of new sites of inspiration! Hope you enjoyed my post and I appreciate every comment you leave :)