My First Quilt

As a child, the only version of quilting in my head was huge quilts pulled taut on wooden quilting frames and secured with oversized, flat headed thumb tacks and C-clamps. I'd say I had a love hate relationship with those thumb tacks, except there was no love- just hate. Those things bruised your fingers trying to push them in and bloodied them trying to pry them out with your fingernails. Don't get me started about pushing enormous needles, threaded with yarn, through the three layers of material and batting and then back up again. If you love your thumbs- DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Maybe it's just my flawed teenage memory, but I swear we tied quilts for every single youth activity from ages 12 to 18. So after I was of legal age to make my own decisions I declared to the world that I HATED quilting. I remained true to this manifesto well into my adult life. There were three separate tragedies that led me to change my mind. (I know- buzzkill - sorry.)

Several years ago in July, a dear friend of mine unexpectedly lost her husband leaving her with eight children (tragedy #1). Someone organized a fundraiser garage sale for this family, and several neighbors that lived in the same cul-de-sac offered their yards to host the sale. One of my friends, who lived in that cul-de-sac, lent her quilts to lay out on the grass so there would be somewhere to put the clothes for sale. At the end of the day, the garage sale organizers loaded up all of the items that didn't sell into a truck to be donated to a thrift store....accidentally including the quilts. Despite searching through the thrift store warehouse, the quilts were never recovered. My friend's family heirlooms, made by her mother and grandmother were gone (tragedy #2).

Obviously, my only choice was to make her a quilt, right? I knew that I could never replace her precious treasures but I had to do something, didn't I? I intended to finish the quilt in time to give it to her for the next Christmas, but my mom's health deteriorated over the next several months so I had other priorities that year. After the death of my mom shortly after Christmas (tragedy #3), I was overcome with constant sadness, especially when I was alone, so I began my quilt research in an attempt to occupy my mind. 

I spent months scouring through Pinterest, reading dozens of "how-to" articles, and watching endless YouTube videos to figure out this "quilting nonsense" and determine if I could, not only make a quilt, but also overcome my detestation of the craft. Finally I found a pattern on Pinterest I thought I could tackle. Then I had to pick out fabric. I'm sure I spent hours at the fabric store. The employees probably thought I was homeless and just wandering around the store to stay cool in the air conditioning. 

Mission "pick out fabric" was a success and now I had to figure out how to cut out the pieces. I'm not sure how I still have all my fingers after using a rotary cutter for the first time. After watching a lot more YouTube videos and spending countless hours on the phone with my Aunt Julie (I will have a whole post dedicated to her soon), I somehow produced something resembling a quilt. Looking at it now, I'm horrified at the utter insult it is to the good names of quilters everywhere. There is no corner that is square, no stitch in the entire quilt that is the same length and I can't even talk about the puckers on the back (oh the shame!), but my entire heart went into that quilt and every uneven stitch was made with love. 

I've asked my friend many times to give it back so I can make her a better one, but she keeps refusing saying that she loves it more for its flaws because it was my first. She may or may not have gotten really annoyed at her husband and me tonight when we were looking for the worst parts of the quilt for me to take pictures of. She didn't like it but we sure had some good laughs (pics below-you're welcome). 

Truth be told, I love this quilt and every single flaw in it because making it gave me peace and gifting it gave me joy- two things I hadn't felt since before losing my mom. 

 

What? The corners are supposed to be square? Check out that bad boy on the bottom right. 

 

In case you're not a quilter- the binding is the edge of the quilt and the front and back of the binding are supposed to be the same width. Nailed it!

 

Folds and puckers on the back = bad. There were too many of these to choose from!

 

Stitching should be done in even, round shapes with no points and definitely should never cross each other. Seriously- Can. Not. Stop. Laughing.