Quilting for the First Time

Here's some stuff that happened recently.

I joined Pinterest. When I joined I was already magically following someone who pins really incredible quilts. Her name is Merche Grossomodo, and I don't know her in real life.

My friend Mandy (who I do know in real life) from Vintage Rag Inspired, who makes these really beautiful bags from some very authentic vintage fabric, gave me a big bag of fabric.

My laptop croaked.

After a week of record-breaking warm temperatures, it returned to a more typical Vermont spring. Big, wet snowflakes are now covering our grill and bikes.

One minute we were watching too many shows about the existence of Big Foot; and the next thing I knew, Officer, I was making a quilt. What?! To say that I'm not a perfectionist would be understating it a bit. I like to call it free-wheeling, and I am very free-wheeling in both crafting and baking. And life, in general, I suppose. On the craft spectrum, I lean more towards the Amy Sedaris side than the Martha Stewart side. Though, I love them both. This free-wheelingness if very helpful when learning new crafts. It helps me to just plow through the early stages of undeveloped skills without becoming too disappointed or discouraged. This is what the process looked like.

I spread out Little Dude's current blanket. The pink one with the flowers and flip flops. It is actually the girl's blanket, but like I said - free-wheeling. I picked out the fabrics that I liked from the stash I got from Mandy. Vintage, indeed! Then I started cutting strips that were similar in size. I knew I wanted stripes, and I knew I wanted my first quilting expedition to be completable in a reasonable amount of time. 

This is what I ended up with. I tried all printed fabrics to start, but it was way too busy for my taste. Adding in the solid blue stripes really worked well.

I added the striped material to the edge to even up the edges, make it a little wider, and give me a way to sew on the back. Basically, I made a giant inside-out bag with stuffing. When I right-side outed it, the stuffing was sewn in along the edges which kept it in place nicely.

I didn't have enough of any fabric to do the back solid. It feels a little in bad fashion to have pieced the back, too, but it kept me from having to actually purchase any parts of this quilt. I started sewing up the edges in a simple straight line pattern. 

I was trying to figure out how I was going to do the actual quilty sewy part of the center since I don't have a quilting sewing machine, a quilting stand, or even a quilting ring. When I accidentally ended up on this website with a straight line quilting tutorial. I really love the way they look! I didn't read the whole tutorial before I plunged in (remember when I told you my laptop broke?), and I didn't use the special foot on my sewing machine. I also started on the outside. I went around three sides in a "U" shape with the top of the quilt being the top of the U. I made my lines wider than the lovely ones on the tutorial. That was just me being lazy. Also, I started on the outside and worked my way inward. I should have done it the other way. My inner rows felt a little lumpier than the other ones.

It doesn't seem to affect the usability. Right after I finished sewing it, I spread it out on the ground to admire my handiwork. It turned into an impromptu photo op. I don't know what he's telling her, but I know it was funny!

I am already gathering ideas for my next quilt.